Ecumenical News

On Thursday, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) moved one step closer to eliminating the synod as a part of its governing structure.

For Presbyterians, the synod is traditionally the second largest ecclesiastical governing body under the General Assembly and overseeing several presbyteries.

PC(U.S.A.)’s Mid-Council Commission recommended in October to eliminate the governing unit by 2016 and approved on Thursday several recommendations to the 220th General Assembly that will move towards reaching that goal.

Members of PC(U.S.A.) have said that the move makes sense both financially and in bringing greater unity to the church.

"We discerned that if we could encourage the kinds of wide-scale collaboration in mission, ministry and advocacy for racial ethnic inclusion that synods have championed within our denomination without that level of bureaucracy, we'd be able to 'flatten' the church,” the Rev. Todd Bolsinger, chairman of the Mid-Council Commission, told the Christian Post.

In place of the synods there will be five regional administrative commissions that will “facilitate churches and presbyteries to fulfill their missional objectives” and will “continue to facilitate and support the racial ethnic ministries that have historically been supported by the Synods,” according to the PC(U.S.A.)’s literature. The new commissions will also have the same amount of authority as the overall General Assembly.

The commissions will be a major topic discussed at the 220th Assembly, which will be held from June 28 to July 7 in Pittsburgh, Penn.

General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons says that the process the church has taken so far is “modeled after what we did in 2002 when we voted to go to biennial General Assemblies.”

 “At that time we went down a whole bunch of rabbit holes to see what tweaks we had to make to implement biennials. We took that experience to help you [the commission] get where you want to go,” Parsons told PC(U.S.A.) news.