The 227th General Assembly of the PC(USA)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning. Good morning, everybody. There will be plenty of time. You can see in the back we have signups for small groups, so I encourage you to do that. There's some information generally about what the small groups cover, and then there's a nice table of all the times. Okay. The day and the time. And I organize the signups according to Monday, Tuesday. So on the left is Monday, if that's your free day or accordingly. Okay. There's a lot of opportunities. So my name is Pat Costigan. I'm part of the Adult Ed group, and I'm here to introduce our speaker. We're very glad and grateful to have this young lady, Rachel Halbo, part of our church community. Also studying to get her M. Div. At Princeton Princeton Theological Seminary. She's worked with Nassau Children and Youth for the past two years, and she's serving now this year on the youth as a youth ministry intern. And over the summer, she hiked on long perks with Mark Edward. That was the climb of her life. So at the moment. But you'll probably have many climbs, academic and physical, so we're glad to have you here. She's going to be talking about the 227th General assembly of the PC USA. Okay. So before you start, we're going to pray. Okay. You can come up. I can pray alongside me or whatever you're comfortable with. Okay. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time, for this morning. We thank you for your multicultural church as it has existed through time. And we thank you for your church as it exists here, for the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. We thank you for it, Lord, and we look forward to hearing about it, about its highs, lows, challenges, desires and beliefs and changes. Lord, thank you that it has life. It has your life in it. And, Lord, give us receptive ears and understanding and a capacity to absorb this information in a way that will energize our faith. Bless Rachel as she speaks. May she find vigor and clarity and courage as she tells us about her experiences. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Good morning. I am so excited to get to be with you all this morning and talk to you about one of my favorite things, which is the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church. As Pat said, my name is Rachel. I'm originally from Sacramento, California, and I am in my third year of seminary at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I've worked at Nassau with Children and Youth for all three years of seminary. I just took my final ordination exams and am awaiting results. I'm a candidate for ordination in the presbytery of the Inland Northwest. So why am I up here talking to you about General Assembly? The short answer is I love policy. I served on the school board as a senior in high school and. And before discerning a call towards the pastorate and seminary, I intended on pursuing a career in education policy. I did policy debate on the national circuit for eight years of my life. Essentially, I'm a big policy nerd. I love parliamentary procedure, which, as you may or may not know, is a big part of our denomination and the General Assembly. So with that context in mind, let's talk about General Assembly. I'm going to show a few graphics that are from an informational pamphlet about what it means to be Presbyterian. And I think they're really helpful for a basic framework of what General assembly is. But before we do that, with a raise of hand, who has been to General assembly before? Wonderful. Okay, can you raise your hand if you're familiar with what General assembly is and how it works? Wonderful. Okay, and then can you raise your hand if General Assembly. Just two words put together. This is completely new for you. Wonderful. Okay, so we've got quite a mixed bag. So I'm going to go over first, just a general intro to what General assembly is. Oh, order of operations. That's what's coming up next. So what is the Presbyterian Church? The Presbyterian Church is a representative democracy governed by elders elected from and by the congregation. There are four governing bodies of the church. The first is session or the local governing body. So for us, that would be the session of Nassau Presbyterian Church. The second is the Presbytery, which oversees the local churches in an area. So we are in the Coastlands Presbytery. Then there's a Synod which oversees several presbyteries. We are in the Northeast Synod. And then finally there's General Assembly. General assembly is the national governing body of the church. So what is General assembly besides just the national governing body of the church? From the 227th General Assembly's frequently Asked Questions page, the General assembly is a council of the Church, a discernment event, and a worshiping body. General assembly is an event that takes place every two years and it rotates location. This summer, the 227th General assembly took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the theme of this year's General assembly was persevering towards Wholeness. So that's a general idea of what General assembly is. Now, who is in the room at General Assembly? So many people. To start off, you have the stated clerk, who is the chief ecclesial officer of the denomination. The current stated clerk is the Reverend Jihyun oh. The co moderators of the General assembly are there. They moderate the General Assembly. This past General assembly had the Rev. C.C. armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson as co moderators. Some other people who are in the room at General Assembly, a parliamentarian, probably multiple assembly staff, corresponding members who are resource people or staff people of the PC usa, and then observers who register in advance and can come and observe. Anyone can come as an observer. And then there are the commissioners. These are the people who are voting at the end of the day on what the governing body decides. The commissioners are teaching elders and ruling elders from all over. And then there are advisory delegates. There are three kinds of advisory delegates. There are the yads or the young Adult Advisory delegates, which are people ages 18 to 23. The tsads, which are theological student advisory delegates. So students from our theological organizations. And then we've got the pads and they do call them that. And I think we should change that. But the pads are our partner advisory delegates, which are global representatives from global mission partners, partner denominations and other inter religious or ecumenical organizations. So we'll talk a little bit more about what each of these groups do. Here's a general overview of what happens at ga. GA is. Yes. [00:08:42] Speaker C: Who sends a commissioner? [00:08:44] Speaker B: Yes, that's a great question. I think I might, but if I don't. Presbyteries. Your presbytery sends. And each presbytery actually has a little bit of a different process as to how they decide those things. But GA is kind of like Congress. That's probably its best comparison. There are overtures or bills that are put forth for consideration by the body. The advisory delegates and commissioners. Overtures that come before the General assembly must be approved by a presbytery or a synod. And they must request that the General assembly takes an action or approves or endorses a statement. Overtures come to the stated clerk and the co moderators and they're then sorted into assembly committees based on the volume and topics of overtures. Advisory delegates and commissioners are then assigned to a particular committee in committee time. The committee hears from overture advocates who are people advocating on behalf of the overture. They hear from resource people or staff from the PCUSA whose area of work or expertise will be impacted by the overture. And they hold open hearings where anyone registered to attend can request to speak. Then there's debate, amendments and finally votes. If an overture has more than a 75% consensus in committee, it is automatically placed on the consent agenda when it comes time for Plenary, with exceptions in committee, advisory delegates have voice and vote. Then all of this business moves to plenary. When everyone is together in one massive room, the consent agenda is first, then by committee. All items of business which did not receive a 75% consensus in committee are brought before the body. Advisory delegates in this space only have voice and do an advisory delegate vote. That is done before the commissioner's vote, then the Commissioner's vote, and that is the number that actually makes the decision. So that's a very fast rundown of ga. What happened this summer? What are some highlights of this summer? Now, I've already given you a lot of information and I hope you know there is only more coming. So I hope that if something sparks your interest, this is the beginning of you looking into this topic. Because there are so many issues covered at General assembly, it would truly be impossible for me to tell you about every single thing. So I'm going to give you a little piece of information about something and if it's interesting, come ask questions or feel free to do more research on your own. There's lots of people who would love to talk to you about these things. So we're going to start with the Consent agenda. There were 76 items adopted on the consent agenda, but six items were pulled from the Consent Agenda. I pulled out three of those that ended up having a lot of discussion later on, and so they stood out to me as areas of tension in our denomination. One was about adding a question to the ministry discernment profile regarding the openness or readiness of a congregation to call an LGBTQIA pastor. One asked for an approval of the Kairos2Palestine document and an overture dealing with the dissolution of the Presbyterian ministry. Co workers were all pulled out and we'll talk a little bit more about each of those later on. Some highlights of things that were passed on the Consent agenda, All of the work that was before the Climate and Environmental Justice Committee was adopted and all mrti, which stands for Mission Responsibility through Investment, were adopted on the Consent agenda. This includes an overture which calls on the denomination's investing agencies to undertake the removal of investments from all companies whose primary business is fossil fuel. This is an overture which has been before the assembly in similar forms many times before. So climate advocates were pretty excited to see this passed on the Consent agenda this year. Also approved, this is kind of a big deal was the organization permission, which establishes a structure for the General assembly as the highest council within the PC usa, and then it establishes and describes Presbyterian Life and Witnesses and its governing Board describing roles, responsibilities for executive leadership, et cetera. This document codifies a big shift for our denomination as it merges what was formerly pma, or the Presbyterian Mission Agency, and oga, or the Office of the General Assembly. It merges them into Presbyterian Life and Witness. If those acronyms mean very little to you, that is okay. And I would love to continue to talk to you more about them if you have questions. This has been an ongoing process that's taken a lot of time and has been difficult. So this was a pretty big deal for this to get approved. That's the consent agenda. Now we're going to go committee by committee. And again, I pulled out things that maybe took a lot of time on the floor for debate or were interesting. But there's even more that has happened, starting with the Committee on Racial Justice. All of the items from this committee were approved. One that I found important was the creation of a special committee on African American Ecclesial Repair. Then from the Committee on Gender and Sexuality justice. This is where that item that was pulled from the Consent Agenda regarding a question about the readiness or desire of a church to call an LGBTQIA pastor being added to the ministry discernment profile. It was approved after a lot of debate and conversation. Then an overture that funds and develops a comprehensive theological framework, document and study guide that addresses human sexuality and gender, the nature, purpose and gift of flourishing, life giving, relationships, and human sexuality in contemporary context. And the Christian vocation of family was approved. This is called Beyond Changing Families. There was a minority report offered on this item that emphasized the need for representation to have true diversity of voice on the committees that would do this work. The minority report was not approved, but it's an area of interest to me because it has to do with movements within Gen Z Presbyterians that are gaining some online traction. And this kind of brings up. Yes, okay. [00:15:30] Speaker D: Thank you. [00:15:31] Speaker C: Can you talk? Go back a little bit after you've done your end. What is the ministry discernment profile? [00:15:37] Speaker B: Yes, the ministry discernment profile is what, like candidates. That's not the right term. People waiting. Yeah. People searching for a call. And churches use to decide where they'll end up, essentially. So it's. This is probably not the best way to put it, but it's kind of like a dating app for churches and pastors trying to make sure that they'll be a good match. We'll be doing this soon. Yes. So you do that for each search. We did it for Wendy, for Wendy's search. So we have at least three more chapters to do so. Yes. And I will say, at least from what I understood, this is it adds this question, but I don't think it forces you to answer this question. It's like if you would like to answer this question, you now have the option. So that also is important to keep in mind when thinking about the actual impact of approving this. It kind of allows people who want to answer that question to answer it, but it doesn't force congregations to from what I understood. Yes, let's see the Committee on Constitutional Interpretation in here, an overture that prohibits the use of non disclosure covenants for all Presbyterian Life and Witness employees was approved. We're going to talk about why that matters on some later business because it's implicated by some other business which all deals with the dissolution of World Mission. Also, an overture dealing with monogamy for ministers which was very much endorsed by this Gen Z movement online was referred to the Beyond Changing Families document that we just talked about on gender and Sexuality Justice. Now from the Committee on Theological Education and Ordination, this was a pretty big change from what I understood. The biggest area of change that was made is made to the ordination process. The language of the overture says this materials may be either standard ordination exams or senior ordination portfolios. The body responsible for preparation for ministry in the candidate's presbytery and the candidate may together determine which examination materials to use, including a possible combination of the standard exams and senior ordination portfolio. If you're not aware, the Presbyterian ordination exams are pretty notorious. Presbyterian especially as someone in seminary right now everyone kind of knows Presbyterians take ordination exams and this changes it so that you may now, in conversation with your presbytery, not have to take some of those exams or all of those exams. Yes. [00:18:32] Speaker E: Just a point of clarification. Are you itemizing things that have been passed and are now in the book of order? [00:18:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:18:39] Speaker E: Not ones that are going to presbytery? [00:18:41] Speaker B: Yes. So yes, the body responsible for preparing candidates for ministry and the candidates presbytery may evaluate the portfolio and subsequently submit both the portfolio and its evaluation to a body established by by the presbyteries for final evaluation. If you're wondering what a senior ordination portfolio is, me too. I think by the next GA there will be some more clarity. I know that it won't impact my ordination process, but it's something coming out of this GA that I'm definitely pretty attuned to because it represents some big changes in our process of ordination. From the Committee on Financial Stewardship and Witness, once again, this is going to be implicated in some business. Further on, an independent audit of restricted funds for World Mission that in its dissolution may have been impacted was approved from the Committee on Reformed Identity in the United States. An overture regarding AI that focuses on the importance of humans and prioritizes discernment about use of AI, especially in regards to use in the church setting, was approved. This overture emphasizes transparency and disclosure when AI is used. Also passed was an overture that recommends considering the creation of a new confession. And it is two sentences long, so I would say more, but that is what the overture says is it's time for us to think about making a new confession from the Committee on Reformed Identity around the World. This is the committee that I served on. Yes, sorry to interrupt. Was that new confession in relation to a particular subject artificial intelligence, or was it just floating? It was like the state of our world makes us think we might need to make a new confession. Yes, this is the committee I was on. [00:20:42] Speaker E: So. [00:20:43] Speaker B: So I feel the most well prepared to answer questions about Reformed identity around the world. So this is one of those items that was pulled off of the consent agenda. An overture. There were several overtures dealing with the Israel Palestine conflict. They were all ultimately approved, including affirming the Kairos Palestine 2 document which calls churches specifically to break their silence and reject complicity. Complicity. It explicitly condemns Christian Zionism, anti Semitism and Islamophobia. Then an overture that seeks the development of a new missiological statement for the denomination was approved. This is the third piece of business which pretty directly is implicated in this third overture from this committee. It's an overture that requests a review of the dissolution of World Mission. I would say in my own personal experience, the debate about this overture was some of the most palpable tension felt throughout the whole assembly. The dissolution of World Mission is the event that contributed to all of these overtures from other committees, including the independent audit of funds that were impacted by this move, the prohibition of the. The use of non disclosure covenants for employees and the desire to create a new missiological statement for the denomination. It's pretty clear that this process was really painful for everyone involved. And a lot of that I think came out at General assembly in a way that felt pretty palpable. Can you describe what that solution, what that looks like? Yeah, I can do my best, genuinely. Actually, Pastor Dave is a great person to ask about this. It's. I couldn't tell you. Recently there was pma, the Presbyterian Mission Agency, oga, the Office of the General Assembly. Those were two bodies that were operating alongside, like, alongside each other. There was definitely a lot of overlap in work being done kind of parallel to this. Starting in the early 2000s, the Presbyterian Church started to interrogate our missional practices and wanted to make sure that we were truly coming alongside Christians in other areas, rather than maybe using some more exploitative measures in how we did mission. And those realities kind of came to a head. And at the previous General assembly, the process of unification was voted on and approved to unify oga, the Office of the General assembly, and pma, the Presbyterian Mission Agency, as a part of that process. They ended, I would say, abruptly, but there was definitely plan in place, our mission partnerships. Now, it happened to also happen the week that the U.S. government cut USAID. And so a lot of that happened. I think there was a lot of reaction that was like, oh, the US Is pulling away from all of our mission partners, and now the Presbyterian Church is doing the same thing. And they didn't have anything to do with each other. It just happened that same week. But it seems from what I understood on the floor of the General assembly, that a lot of those conversations about ends of relationship were done in ways that people felt really hurt by. And there was just a lot, it seems. I would say it kind of seems like a messy human resources issue. And so the fact that it was playing out on the General assembly floor was really hard to witness a lot of people really hurt by an organization that they care a lot about. [00:24:38] Speaker C: Was it financially driven? [00:24:39] Speaker B: Did they cut those ties to try to save money? No, because it comes from the study of missional integration and how we want to engage, but because it coincided with the unification process, which some of those things were like, we have people doing the same work and we can't afford to pay people doing the same work. So it really became a very, very hard process, as any kind of unification probably is in most organizations. And I had a lot of respect for the way that the stated clerk navigated this conversation also on the floor of the assembly because it was just really difficult. And you could tell that people were feeling a lot of emotions in the moment. So ultimately, yes, one of the speakers [00:25:34] Speaker C: earlier this fall was specifically focused on this. And you can probably go back and go ahead series and find that speaker and that information. She had a whole slide show. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Yes, because it was a pretty big deal. It changes a lot of things structurally. And now that organization was passed on the consent agenda. But what this overture in particular does is it asks the General assembly to conduct a review of the way that the closing of World Mission in particular happened. Yes. Then from the Committee on General Assembly Relationships, overtures that continue the denomination's ecumenical work were approved. Committee on Financial Stewardship and witness the per capita, which that's a whole other thing to explain, but the per capita increase by $2.10 in 2027, making it $13.04, and it increases by $1.45 in 2028, making it $12.72. Finally, about the 228th General assembly, which is our next General Assembly. The next co moderators were elected and they are the Reverend Marta Pomeroy Cordero and the Reverend Dr. Chris Schlondelmeier. And the 228th General assembly will be held in Puerto Rico in the summer of 2028. So as I said, that was quite a lot of information. Pretty quickly, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to pray and then open it up for questions and conversation. So will you join me in prayer? Dear Lord, thank you for the work of this church. Thank you for the people of this church. Thank you for the spaces that you give us to better understand the work that you're doing, the way that you're moving and how you are inviting us into that work. I pray that you would help us understand all that there is to understand and know when it might be a little bit more than we can handle right now. I pray that you would guide us into the work you are doing. It's in your holy name we pray. [00:27:59] Speaker F: Amen. [00:28:02] Speaker B: Wonderful. Yes. [00:28:08] Speaker D: Does a delegate to the General assembly, do they vote with. Do they represent the vote of their congregation or are they directed to vote their conscience? [00:28:25] Speaker B: They are directed to vote their conscience. Yes. That's a great question. [00:28:40] Speaker A: Incidentally, if you haven't signed in, can you please sign in? Did everybody sign in? Okay, I'll take care of that. Thank you. [00:28:51] Speaker B: When you refer to committee to make a new confession, what is a confession with respect to the organization? Yes, so that's a great question. The overture calls, rather than saying, make a new confession, it says, let's make a. I'm not sure if it's committee language or what group, but they're going to get together a group of people with whatever they consider to be expertise that's relevant and then decide whether or not to make a new confession. So there is no language in this that says we need to make a new confession. It will go to. They'll create either a committee or some kind of group of people which will go through the General Assembly. Nominating, process. And then they'll come together and over a certain amount of time, study, have conversations with constituents, conversations with maybe other bodies, and then decide whether or not to make a confession once. The confession would be something that they would want to be adding to the Book of Confessions. Yes, right. They would be looking to write a new confession. Well, they would be looking to decide whether or not we should write a new confession. Not globally. It would be added to the PC USA Book of Confessions. So. Yes. Can you just tell real briefly how confessions function in the church? That's kind of an important component. Oh, it is a tough question, but I liked the language that Andrew just used of like a theologically guiding document that. So, like the confession of Belhar or the Westminster Confession. Those are documents that we as Presbyterians uphold. [00:30:59] Speaker C: Just like to point out that sometimes in the confession of faith that we use during our service, take sections from these confessions and use them in the service, you know, on a regular basis. [00:31:12] Speaker B: We also haven't heard from any young [00:31:14] Speaker C: people yet, and I've seen their hands raised, and I'm wondering if we could [00:31:17] Speaker B: maybe make some space for them to speak. [00:31:19] Speaker D: That's right. So is the international support eliminated, reduced, or bureaucratically rearranged or all three? What does that mean? [00:31:28] Speaker B: I would go with was eliminated is being rearranged. That's what my answer to that question would be. Those mission partnerships did end, and that seemingly happened in one conversation. But then there had been broader conversations around the desire for a restructuring, and that is now what's taking place. And part of what's guiding that work is this new missiological statement that there will be a committee formed to create and that should guide then what our understanding of mission is and what those relationships look like. Yes. Are there any overtures you felt like really passionate about that didn't wind up getting passed? Oh, that didn't get passed. I don't think there was anything that didn't get passed. I think, yeah, I think I definitely was. I, just, because of my own subject position, am pretty attuned to the conversation around beyond Changing Families and that particular overture. And I think a lot of that felt really relevant to me because there just was a new. Not new, but a different representation from Gen Z Presbyterians at this General assembly than there had been before. Disarmament. Oh, okay. [00:33:05] Speaker C: Who sponsored an overture that was not passed? [00:33:07] Speaker B: Okay. Yes. [00:33:10] Speaker G: Just to clarify on what you just said, it was passed. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:33:14] Speaker G: But it was committed and it was. It was edited, but it was. It was actually, Yeah. The. The overture was on nuclear disarmament, and it was advocating study. It was passed, but it was amended and it was referred to a committee for the next General assembly to review. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:33:53] Speaker F: Because there were no other questions. Something that stood out to me was when you were talking about less exploitative measures and, like, mission. And could you clarify that a little bit and help us understand maybe what was done to make it feel that that was the case, and now we're moving away from that being the case? [00:34:15] Speaker B: Yes, totally. That's a great question. And it's really complicated. That's part of the reason why it's taken from the early 2000s until now for us to make any real, tangible change in our missional practices, because we have a lot of wonderful, established relationships with partners across the globe doing work. And it wasn't until, like I said, the early 2000s, that we started to interrogate those practices and want to make sure that. I think the language I used before is that we're coming alongside and partnering with people in other locations, rather than maybe coming in as an outsider and possibly making some assumptions or operating off of assumptions that didn't respect the dignity of the people in the area. Now, I don't necessarily think that that is saying that that is representative of any, let alone all, of the mission work of the Presbyterian Church, but part of this process was in. This was done over many years of conversation with mission partners across the world, with Presbyterians here. And this is kind of the decision that that culminated in was we're gonna get rid of the way that it is currently structured and start anew, essentially, and reevaluate what those relationships look like. So I don't have anything more specific than that, necessarily, because a lot of it is situational, but also a lot of it just has to do with. Which is why I was really grateful that the missiological statement overture was passed, because I think it's important for us to think theologically about mission and about the way that we're engaging in mission in the world. And that's what that overture invites us to do, to then frame our relationships with people across the world. [00:36:11] Speaker D: So we had a lecture a few weeks ago indicating that the Presbyterian church is about 50% politically conservative and 50% politically liberal. Perhaps theologically as well. I'm not sure. Did you see those tensions or evident at the General Assembly? Did you see healing? [00:36:34] Speaker B: Yes, yes, to both. Absolutely. Plenty of tension, and I think a lot of really beautiful unifying moments as well. To me, the place that was the most interesting for those conversations was amongst the young people and specifically amongst the young adult advisory delegates. There was a lot of strife and pain and also a lot of really beautiful relationships formed across difference amongst the young adults. But, yeah, I love General assembly, and part of the reason why I love General assembly is because you get to see people from all over the country who are worshiping in similar ways and believe similar things, and they still believe really different things, and they still have really different understandings of how and where God is moving in the world. And to me, that's something I find really beautiful, if not difficult, certainly messy, but very beautiful. [00:37:45] Speaker E: I know there was an ordination task force. I know there was an ordination task force, and I don't see anything up here. What do you know about what happened with all of that work? [00:38:03] Speaker B: Yes, part of that work is the change in senior exams. So that comes from that same overture. That overture is like at least nine items long. That's just one of the things that's changing about the ordination process. It was the one that had the most debate, which is why I brought it up. Some other things that changed had to do with granting equivalent degrees to a master's of divinity, especially for people who might come from different contexts. And there was some debate over allowing accredited versus unaccredited institutions and degrees. I don't remember exactly. I think we landed on accredited, but I am not positive on that one. But the senior ordination exams was kind of the biggest change. There's also some new training things for committees on preparation of ministry, some more explicit language around how often they need to be meeting, a lot more bias, complicit, implicit bias training and whatnot was implemented into that process as well. So those are some of the things that came out of that ordination task force. But that was a big one. Just the largest change that was brought up from that was this change to the exams. Yes. [00:39:26] Speaker E: And are all those things, things that are going, going back to the presbyteries for a vote? [00:39:30] Speaker B: I believe they are going back to the presbyteries. Yeah. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Well, I guess we have a couple more minutes for questions. [00:39:45] Speaker B: So with regards to world mission, if we had a relationship with a community in another country far away from here, and we were helping provide them with housing and water, we just said goodbye and we walked away. Or could you address that, please? Totally. Totally. That was also something that was a part of this conversation. The short answer is, on an individual congregational level, no individual congregations that already had relationships with people in other areas were able to maintain those. However, some of the people doing that work, their ties to the denomination was severed. And that is kind of the crux of the issue was the way that that severance happened, which again, to me says that's a human resources issue of the way that those positions were let go, which obviously included non disclosure covenants and potential funds that we're not quite sure what's happening with. And so that's why there's a review now to understand what actually happened in that process and help the General assembly understand a little bit more. And from my own personal perspective, I think it's just necessary to do that to make sure that it doesn't happen that way again, that it's like very normal and really difficult to end a relationship like that. And sometimes we don't do it well. And so let's take a look at that and understand if we didn't do it well, how we can do it better next time. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Okay, we're almost at the time. Oh, okay. Last question. [00:41:32] Speaker D: Sorry. You spoke about a Reformed witness. So what was. What do you see in terms of the breadth of the Presbyterian and Reformed community? Are we having any influence there? There's even more diversity, I think, in the Reformed community. Are we making a difference or are all the divisions and differences persisting? [00:41:55] Speaker B: Can I ask, are you speaking to, like, the impact the denomination is having in the world or the impact different voices are having on the denomination? [00:42:04] Speaker D: I'm talking about not just our denomination, but Reformed community broadly. And so that we have an even larger voice within the Christian community. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Totally. I think one of the things I love about General assembly also is that it is an ecumenical event and we get to hear from leaders of other denominations and other religious faiths and better understand their relationship with the PC usa. And so I really appreciated that because I think it does show the way that faith groups as a whole are impacting the world and the work that we're doing, why it matters, and that there are so many people affected by decisions that governing bodies like this one make. Even when I think sometimes it can be easy for us to be like, well, we're just making a statement, like, what impact does it have? But then getting to hear from, like, some of our partner advisory delegates. As a member of the Reformed Identity around the World Committee, two of our partner advisory delegates who joined us on ZOOM for committee were denied visa access and so were not able to attend the General assembly because of that. But some of the statements that we were then making or helping understand were things that they were extremely grateful for and saying that this might help them allow to or might help them be able to be a part of these conversations in the future in ways that continues to bring us all together as a global community. [00:43:35] Speaker A: Well, this was wonderful. We thank you for your very detailed passion for this event and your understanding of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith as it exists now. May that continue. It's very exciting to know that you're where you are. Okay, let's give her a round of applause. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for all your questions. You are all so engaged, so sometimes this can go right over people's heads. And all of you were engaged, so that was wonderful. Thank you.