At the very beginning of Sunday’s worship service celebrating the 200th anniversary of First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Indiana, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Felipe Martínez, stood up, smiled broadly, and said, “Good morning, church. Hey, church — happy birthday!”
Members of the Commission on the Unification of the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency met in open session for less than half an hour on Thursday morning, with the remainder of their time together Thursday and most of the meeting Friday set to occur as a Committee of the Whole, which is also closed except to commission members and invited staff and its consultant.
Ahead of the 120-day deadline for the 226th General Assembly, the Unification Commission on Saturday unanimously approved its interim report, with a final report due to the 227th General Assembly in 2026.
Meeting Saturday via Zoom, the Unification Commission voted to approve the formation a small task force to work with staff to review its charter “and all polity, process and procedural issues” related to the commission’s upcoming report to the 226th General Assembly next year and make recommendations to the Unification Commission at its next meeting, set for Jan. 18-20, 2024 in Louisville, Kentucky.
In a Sunday meeting that was a little hard for non-commissioners to follow because workgroup reports were kept private until the conclusion of the public portion of the Unification Commission’s online gathering, commissioners received a report on initial steps of unifying communications ministries of the Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency.
