wfn.org | Committee on Review Schedules First Meeting

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5-Oct-95

95359      Committee on Review Schedules First Meeting 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The first meeting of the quadrennial General Assembly 
Committee on Review of the General Assembly Council, Its Divisions and 
Corporate and Administrative Services,  and Other General Assembly Bodies 
has been scheduled for Oct. 12-14 in Cincinnati. 
 
     The 18-member committee is charged to conduct an "independent" review 
and evaluation of the work of General Assembly entities and "make 
recommendations on its findings" to next year's General Assembly in 
Albuquerque.  Staff to the committee is the Rev. Zane Buxton, manager for 
judicial process in the Office of the General Assembly. 
 
     This year's Assembly referred an additional piece of business to the 
Review Committee: an overture from Western Colorado Presbytery that 
proposes radical changes in the way representatives are named  to General 
Assembly-level entities and how the General Assembly offices are 
structured. 
 
     The overture calls for elected members of General Assembly entities to 
be elected directly by presbyteries from nominations by sessions. 
Currently, national-level committee members are elected by the General 
Assembly upon nomination by the General Assembly Nominating Committee.  The 
Assembly instructed the Review Committee to "develop a plan" to implement 
the overture's representational formula. 
 
     The overture also calls for the dismantling of the General Assembly 
Council and its replacement by four semiautonomous boards that would 
oversee the programmatic work of the denomination.  The Assembly asked the 
Review Committee to "strongly consider" the proposal. 
 
     The Review Committee, nominated by the General Assembly Nominating 
Committee and elected by this year's General Assembly, is made up one 
representative from each of the 16 synods and two ecumenical 
representatives.  Synod representatives (and their synods): 
 
     The Rev. Steven Bomely, Mid-America; Ana Braulio, Puerto Rico; the 
Rev. Corina Chavez, Southwest; Buddy Tate Choy, Pacific; Betty Jane Crago, 
Mid-Atlantic; Jean Elliott, Trinity; Gordon Jones, Lakes and Prairies; the 
Rev. Alan Landes, Rocky Mountains; the Rev. Robert Lorimer, Lincoln Trails; 
George McDonald, Southern California and Hawaii; Betty Moore, South 
Atlantic; the Rev.  Robert Nicholson, Alaska-Northwest; Julius Poppinga, 
Northeast; Harry Robson, Sun; the Rev. William Stewart, Living Waters; and 
Betty Lou Stull, Covenant. 
 
     Ecumenical representatives are the Rev. Maitland Evans, United Church 
of Jamaica and Cayman Islands; and the Rev. Lois Wilson, United Church of 
Canada. 
 
 

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