NEW YORK – The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) doesn’t convene  in Minneapolis until July 3, 2010. While this may seem a long way off, ask anyone who has ever put together a large gathering — religious or secular — and Opening Day sometimes seems a mere 10 minutes away.

Along with national level planning, there is also General Assembly planning at the local level. This planning includes the development and submission of overtures to the General Assembly.

Each Assembly, dozens of presbyteries submit overtures on a wide variety of issues and concerns as well as proposed …

LOUISVILLE — For more than 100 years, the Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study has provided Presbyterians with information about and connections to the church’s work in the world.

And that tradition continues this year, with the publication of the 2010 edition. Now available for purchase, the book was also distributed at the recent World Mission Celebration in Cincinnati.

The book dedicates one page to every day of the year. Each page focuses on a specific theme. Whether a page is about a presbytery or synod, a country in which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is involved or a Minute for …

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — the highest court in the church — has issued two technical rulings that leave unresolved the extent to which conscientious objection to the church’s sexual conduct standards may disqualify candidates for ordination.

The Nov. 2 rulings involve Lisa Larges, a lesbian candidate for the ministry in San Francisco Presbytery, and the Rev. Paul Capetz, a gay theology professor in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area who set aside his ordination in 2000 and then sought reinstatement in 2007.

The rulings effectively allow San Francisco …

Attendees of the Europe plenary session of the World Mission Celebration here Oct. 23 were greeted with a new format — a newscast.

Acting as members of the fictional Presbyterian News Network (PNN), presenters told the crowd about mission in Europe and central Asia through a series of “interviews” and “newscasts” on stage.

First up was Gabriela Horakova, a pastor in the Czech Republic. She spoke about the work of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ECCB), which is a partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the second-largest non-governmental organization in the Czech Republic.

The ECCB has about 30 …

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will televise a six-hour documentary series on the history of religious life in America. The series — “God in America” — produced by WGBH in Boston, will air in November 2010.

“In America, religion matters and in American history, religion has always mattered,” says promotional material for the year-from-now series. “The American story cannot be fully understood without understanding how religious ideas and spiritual experience shaped that history.”

The shows will cover 500 years of American religious history, from the arrival of Columbus to the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president.  It will track …