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Danny E. Olinger
Before the Ninetieth General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church convened on the campus of Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington, members of the Committee on Arrangements were already hard at work. Alan Montgomery, Bob Tarullo, and David Mahaffy were picking up rental shuttle vans, setting up video equipment, and testing the voting system. Registrar Linda Jones worked with volunteers to determine routes for the golf carts to move mobility-impaired commissioners between buildings. On the morning of the start of the assembly, Joe Troutman and Jesse Montgomery kept track of commissioners with flight delays while local OPC volunteers directed commissioners arriving at the Seattle-Tacoma airport to the light rail and greeted them when they transferred from the trains to the assembly vans. John Muether was busy setting up tables for displays and vendors.
As the members of the Committee on Arrangements were working to make sure that the 139 commissioners, 20 corresponding members, and 17 fraternal delegates did not have to worry about logistics and lodging, others were preparing for what they had been tasked to do by the general assembly and their presbyteries or committees. What follows is an account of the assembly, drawing from the reflections of individuals who were engaged in service and reporting during the assembly.
John Shaw, the moderator of the Eighty-Ninth General Assembly, led the opening worship service and preached a heartfelt sermon on Psalm 56, “When I Am Afraid.” He commented,
After attending roughly fifteen general assemblies, my regular experience is something like this: “I need to hear more about Jesus; please remind me of Jesus.” My heart, soul, and mind need the strength that comes from Jesus when facing busy schedules, hard issues, and difficult decisions. That thought guided me in planning the opening worship service, especially in choosing for a text Psalm 56. The fears of life in a sin-scarred world constantly chase us to discouragement and defeat. But Jesus provides the answer to the devil’s accusations and temptations: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (v. 3).
John Fesko, professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, was elected as moderator. Before the assembly started, Mr. Fesko was asked if he would be willing to stand if nominated. He recalled,
My longtime colleague David Winslow called me the week before the assembly to ask if I would be willing to be nominated. I told him, “It’s not something that I want to pursue, but if in God’s providence he calls me to serve, I am willing.” I immediately began to pray that the Lord’s will would be done, as I knew the assembly’s docket was challenging, and, if elected, it would be difficult to moderate. This was the first assembly in the denomination’s history that was extended in advance due to the one judicial appeal and nine complaints before it.
The assembly then divided into committees that were assigned to report on committee work, overtures, communications, and appeals. Assistant Clerk John Mahaffy explained his duties.
After the assembly convenes, it breaks up into small advisory committees to review all the reports that come to the assembly. I have created online forms to facilitate getting the appropriate information to most of the advisory committees and then getting their reports to the clerks to be communicated to the commissioners. I find it rewarding to serve the Lord by helping those carrying out the work of the church at its broadest level to have easy access to the information they need to carry out their tasks.
After five hours of advisory committee work, the assembly regathered to hear reports. One of the most encouraging was from Mark Richline, missionary to Uruguay for the last twelve years. Although he informed the assembly that, prayerfully, he and his wife have concluded their missionary service in order to move closer to their family, he also reported on the great things that the Lord is doing with the mission in Uruguay. He said,
The Lord Jesus Christ has raised up three robust Presbyterian and Reformed works, each with their own ordained officers. These established works have in turn produced three more church plants. All this has been accomplished by God’s grace, in collaboration with other missionaries from the Presbyterian Church of Brazil. All six works need Uruguayan pastors. Our mission requests that churches would pray that there would be funds for pastoral training so that gifted men can dedicate more time to their seminary studies.
New Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension (CHMCE) general secretary Jeremiah Montgomery talked about his reporting to the assembly.
I attended my first general assembly in 2013 as a young church planter. This year, 2024, I attended my first general assembly as general secretary for CHMCE. Looking at the story the Lord has unfolded in the life of my family is as humbling as it is surprising. I consider it a tremendous honor and a sacred privilege now to serve the denomination that has served my soul so well since childhood.
Caring for retired OPC ministers and their widows is accomplished in part through the Obadiah Fund, and the Committee on Ministerial Care (CMC) was eager to update the assembly on the status of the fund. CMC member Greg De Jong was assigned the task. He reflected,
The Obadiah Fund has been a significant source of diaconal support for our retirees, but most of that happens behind the scenes. We felt it was important that the commissioners hear firsthand not only about what the fund has allowed us to accomplish, but also about the growing needs we are facing. I planned to tell the assembly that we were exactly a third of the way to the goal of $2.5 million but had the pleasure of modifying my slides because another $50,000 pledge came in. The commissioners’ interest and support of our efforts were gratifying.
Keith LeMahieu, treasurer of the Committee on Coordination, gave praise to God for the generous giving (5 percent over the budgeted goal) to the OPC in 2023. He also reported on the committee’s work to support sessions in their responsibility to encourage the practice of biblical stewardship. He said,
It is estimated that $85 trillion of wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next before the year 2045. A portion of that wealth transfer, about $13 trillion, will be given to charity, but most Christians need expert advice to help them honor their obligation to biblical stewardship. The OPC has made it possible for her members to obtain this expert advice at no charge through its relationship with the Barnabas Foundation.
Mark Bube, Committee on Ecumenicity and Interchurch Relations (CEIR) administrator, facilitates greetings from fraternal delegates of churches with which
the OPC has an official ecclesiastical relationship. Mr. Bube said,
This year there were fraternal delegates from fifteen churches from all around the world present with us, including from Austria/Switzerland, Canada, England/Wales, Hungary, Korea, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, South Sudan, and of course, the United States. Our hearts were warmed as we listened to our brothers’ reports of what the Lord was doing among them. And, as has been our practice for more than a decade, the CEIR hosted an evening colloquium for the fraternal delegates during which they, together with the members of the CEIR who are present at the assembly, gather around a large table to open our hearts to one another and to pray for each other. It was truly a sweet and precious time.
After two years of work, the Special Committee to Help Equip Officers to Protect the Flock submitted their report. Committee member Carl Miller said,
As the undershepherds of Christ have the joyful duty of protecting his precious lambs, it was the Special Committee’s privilege to work together and provide sessions biblical and practical tools to support their ministry in doing so. We pray that our report’s two handbooks, so to speak, on sexual predation and domestic violence, will be helpful to that end.
John Keegan, pastor of Grace OPC in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, represented the Presbytery of New Jersey in an overture that sought for the assembly to change the presbytery’s name to the Presbytery of New Jersey and Puerto Rico. The overture was passed. Mr. Keegan described the joy felt with the assembly’s action:
The Presbytery of New Jersey, through their stated clerk Rev. Todd Smith, overtured the Ninetieth General Assembly of the OPC to amend the name of the PNJ to the Presbytery of New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Upon the vote of the assembly to grant the overture, a moving and joyful spontaneous applause arose from the commissioners and attendees. This celebration also quickly spread to the island of Puerto Rico. ¡Sólo a Dios sea la gloria! Soli Deo gloria!
During the week, warm fellowship was abundantly evident. Retired and current foreign missionaries to Uganda Phil and Meredith Proctor, Jonathan and Margaret Falk, Brian and Dorothy Wingard, Tony Curto, Charles Jackson, Al Tricarico, and Bill Kessler could be seen laughing and talking together at nearly every meal. Anneke Fesko, the CMC’s Care Coordinator for Ministers’ Wives, helped to organize times of prayer and local sightseeing trips. On the morning of the Lord’s Day, multiple vans and cars were packed with commissioners headed to worship with the OPC congregations in Bothell (Trinity), Kent (Emmanuel), Lynnwood (Lynnwood), Oak Harbor (Sovereign Grace), and Olympia (Reformation Presbyterian), Washington.
Once the committee reports were completed (for the most part), the assembly began to hear an appeal and multiple complaints. Mr. Fesko reflected on how the assembly’s work up to that point prepared him for what was to follow. He said,
The assembly’s initial business was a good way for me to get my parliamentary feet beneath me and to establish a rhythm. As moderator you must call upon the memory as to how other moderators have served and made decisions, and sometimes that memory is rusty. The regular business prepared me for the more difficult test of moderating judicial appeals and complaints. Appeals and complaints are typically more difficult because they deal with disagreement between two or more parties who both believe they are right. This year’s large number of complaints required the assembly to streamline debate so that we could hear all of the cases before us.
So heavy was the workload for appeals and complaints that the assembly had two advisory committees working full time on its behalf. David Winslow Jr., longtime elder at Westminster OPC in Westminster, California, served as the chairman of one of these committees. He said about the work involved,
Preparing for a general assembly where ten appeals will be heard is daunting. It took me weeks of preparation reading each of the five appeals assigned to our committee. In addition to the material distributed to the assembly, we were supplied with an additional two inches of paper that included session and presbytery minutes and position papers covering each appeal. I constantly reminded myself not to draw conclusions until the parties in each appeal were heard.
A judicial appeal against the Presbytery of the Southeast was sustained. The presbytery had upheld the verdict of a trial in absentia of a jailed member. The assembly overturned the presbytery’s action and returned the matter to the member’s session.
A complaint was sustained against the Presbytery of New York and New England, which had allowed a presbytery commission to enter into a contract with an outside organization to investigate on its behalf. The presbytery was instructed to acknowledge and record in its minutes its error.
Another complaint that was sustained was against the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic. A member of one of the congregations in the presbytery had complained to his session about a position paper that allowed women, under the general office of all believers, to teach a mixed class of adult men and women in a Sunday-school-like setting. The assembly instructed the session to retract the paper and to commit to having men teach in mixed settings outside of public worship. A protest was filed and signed by nineteen commissioners. The protesters argued that the prohibition in 1 Timothy 2:11–15 specifically prohibits women from exercising teaching and ruling functions reserved for the office of elder. They also argued that the action of the assembly, because of its understanding of this text, places an undue and unnecessary restriction.
One complaint that was denied dealt with the position of a church session that it would not admit into membership those who refused to present their children for baptism. The assembly reaffirmed the position of the Thirty-Third (1966) General Assembly that this was a matter of judgment by local sessions.
Immediately before the assembly breaks for lunch daily, it has a devotional service. Zachary Simmons, pastor of Resurrection OPC in State College, Pennsylvania, had the privilege of delivering the devotional to the assembly on Friday, June 21. Mr. Simmons said,
A few months ago, our presbytery moderator asked if I would be willing to do the devotion on behalf of our presbytery. I agreed reluctantly; I was willing to serve but a little overawed by the idea, being a relatively new minister at only my second general assembly. Before and during the devotion, I was much more nervous than I have been for any public ministry occasion in a long time, but I tried to set aside this self-consciousness and remember it was not about me. I wanted most of all to offer gospel encouragement and a meaningful exhortation that would touch all our hearts in a fresh way with the glory, goodness, and calling of Christ revealed through a dramatic episode in Nehemiah’s leadership. As I saw the assembly’s attentive faces, it was very much like preaching to my congregation. Like every Sunday, we were all tired sinners who needed a taste of Christ’s grace from his Word, and hopefully to some degree that’s what we received together.
On Sunday evening, a joint service was held. Daniel Dillard, pastor of Grace Reformed Presbyterian in Bend, Oregon, participated in the service:
Our Presbytery Arrangements Committee asked me, as one of our presbytery’s senior commissioners, whether I would be willing to lead the Sunday evening worship service up to the reading and preaching of the Word. The joyfully reverent sound of all the men and women singing with such love and devotion to the Lord was very uplifting, along with Pastor Robert VanKooten’s excellent message.
Chris Malamisuro, pastor of Good Shepherd OPC in Cincinnati, Ohio, authored the assembly’s resolution of thanks. He commented,
Early in the assembly, the moderator, Mr. John Fesko, asked me if I would write the resolution. I talked with those who served in the food service, as pages, and on the Committee on Arrangements. I watched others to get a sense of their work. Ultimately, I wanted to thank God for overseeing our assembly and being gracious to us. I was honored and humbled to be asked to write this resolution and to serve the assembly in this way.
John Fesko, who received a standing ovation from the assembly for his service, thanked the Lord for his grace to him and the assembly during the week.
Each morning, I prayed these words: “Lord, give me the wisdom of Christ to lead well, great patience so that I do not give in to anger or frustration, and the humility to admit when I am wrong and to seek correction and input from others so I can moderate effectively.” Moderating is a challenging task, but by God’s grace in Christ, God was faithful to answer my prayers. We were able to complete all our docketed business.
The author is editor of New Horizons. New Horizons, August 2024.
© 2024 The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
