wfn.org | Standardized exams not to be required for commissioned lay pastors

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6097 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

30-June-2000
GA00146

	Standardized exams not to be required for commissioned lay pastors 

	Overture 00-81 defeated as Church Orders & Ministry completes report

	by Emily Enders Odom

LONG BEACH, June 30 - In an effort to require commissioned lay pastors to be
tested by the same types of standardized examinations as those given to
ministers of the Word and Sacrament, C. Freeman McCall, commissioner from
the Presbytery of Yellowstone, asked that a substitute motion replace the
Church Orders & Ministry Committee's original motion to disapprove Overture
00-81.  In speaking to his substitute motion and against committee moderator
Heidi Peterson's recommendation, McCall insisted that "commissioned lay
pastors are authorized to do everything that ministers of the Word and
Sacrament do."  He advised that requiring standardized examinations would
"ensure the highest quality possible."

	Paul Hooker, a member of the Presbyteries' Cooperative Committee on
Examinations for Candidates, spoke to the financial implications of McCall's
substitute motion, totaling $182,640 over two years.  Following the
testimony of speakers on both sides of the issue, including a Theological
Student Advisory Delegate who had just endured "the grueling process" of
ordination exams, the substitute motion was defeated by a vote of 409 to 75.
 The main motion to disapprove Overture 00-81, requiring the standardized
examinations,  passed by a margin of 425 to 63.

	Other business presented by the committee to the Assembly included the
approval of Overture 00-50, to permit waiver of examination requirements
when an inquirer or candidate has a documented disability, with an amendment
to allow the presbyteries even greater latitude as to that documentation. 
While one elder commissioner from San Juan Presbytery spoke if favor of
minimizing exceptions in the standardized examination process, because, as
she said, "every career process is difficult in its own way," the overture
was approved by a vote of 309 to 165.

	Commissioners' Resolution 00-23, directing that a new study "defining the
nature and scope of the unity of the church and the limits of diversity in
the church under the headship of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Scriptures
and as explicated by the confessions of the church," was disapproved by the
Assembly by a vote of 392 to 94.

	Finally, Commissioners' Resolution 00-24, concerning the preparation and
publication of an historical overview of conflicts within the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), was disapproved with comment.  In actuality, as the comment
by the committee indicated, the Presbyterian Historical Society had already
prepared such a report.  It was deemed that the Spring 2000 Issue of the
"Journal of Presbyterian History," titled, "Presbyterians in Times of
Controversy," fulfills the intent and the request of this resolution.

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