[NOTE: The following report is an unofficial account of the proceedings of the 63rd General Assembly. It was prepared by Terry M. Gray who was a ruling elder commissioner from the Presbytery of the Midwest. All attempts have been made to keep the report objective and complete; no doubt, however, on occasion the opinions of the author will find their way into the report especially by way of selection the matters reported. Explanations are given for the work of the various committees of the GA and for issues that have some history so that readers unacquainted with these matters can understand the report.]

1. PRE-ASSEMBLY CONFERENCE. On Thursday, June 6 there was a pre-assembly conference with papers on the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the OPC. Dr. Darryl Hart presented "Is the OPC the Spiritual Successor of the PCUSA?" Mr. John Meuther presented "The OPC and the Sabbath" Rev. Charles Dennison presented "Cornelius Van Til and the OPC."

2. OPENING WORSHIP SERVICE. The General Assembly opened Thursday evening, June 6, 1996 with a worship service led by the moderator of the previous General Assembly, Rev. Douglas A. Watson. Rev. Watson preached a sermon entitled "The Four "Alls" of Prayer" and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was observed, administered by Rev. Robert W. Eckardt.

3. BUSINESS MEETINGS. The normal meetings of the Assembly were held every day 8:00 am-12:15 pm, 1:15-5:00 pm and 6:20-9:05 pm. There were devotions each day just before the noon break.

4. ROLL CALL. The roll was taken. There were 89 (of 92 commissioned) ministers present and 49 (of 60 commissioned) ruling elders present. An informal poll was taken revealing the following information:

5. ELECTION OF THE MODERATOR. Rev. Larry Mininger, pastor of the Orlando, FL congregation (Presbytery of the South), David Winslow, ruling elder at the Garden Grove, CA congregation (Presbytery of Southern California) and Rev. Robert Needham, pastor of the San Joaquin Valley, CA congregation (Presbytery of Northern California) were nominated. Mr. Winslow was elected on the first ballot.

6. ADVISORY COMMITTEES. At the beginning of the Assembly each commissioner is appointed to a committee of 10-12 members that advises the Assembly concerning the various matters before it. These committees review the reports and overtures presented to the Assembly and examine the recommendations. Most often they concur with the original recommendations; sometimes they disagree and recommend that the Assembly defeat a recommendation or overture; sometimes they amend the recommendations. The debate in the advisory committee is often a preview of the debate on the floor of the Assembly. On controversial questions the advisory committee will not be able to come to a united report and a minority will recommend a different course of action.

7. REPORT OF THE STATED CLERK. Rev. Donald Duff serves as the full-time Stated Clerk of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He prepares the General Assembly minutes, prepares the agenda, deals with denominational correspondence, etc. Of special note this year is his work with the Committee on Christian Education in a project to get an OPC presence on the Internet (the OPC can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.opc.org). The Assembly adopted a recommendation requesting the Clerk to report on his involvement in OPC Web page (presumably in recognition of the vast amounts of time that Internet activities can consume). In light of the proliferation of displays present in the Assembly meeting hall promoting various denominational and other ministries, the Assembly asked the Clerk to develop criteria to regulate these displays. Rev. Glenn Jerrell was appointed as Assistant Clerk.

8. REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES. The Trustees of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church are concerned with the legal identity of the OPC and related matters. The Assembly recommended that the Trustees change the IRS listing of the OPC from the Trustees of the General Assembly of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church to The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Assembly also gave the Trustees oversight of the General Assembly Operation Fund.

Elections: Rev. Arthur Kuschke and ruling elder William Neel were nominated and elected to the trustees.

9. REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. Mr. Luke Brown, Statistician of the OPC, presented his report. The number of local churces grew from 181 to 189 with 11 new churches coming from mission works being organized. The number of home mission works grew from 35 to 36 with 11 of these being new works. The total number of works now is now 225. The total membership of the OPC is 21,131 (355 ministers, 14,355 communicant members and 6,421 non communicant members members) which represents an increase of 4.9 %.

10. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS (CFM). Rev. Richard Gaffin, president of CFM, reported for the committee. Mr. Mark Bube, General Secretary of the CFM presented a pictorial round the world survey of OPC mission works. He reported on the medical work in Kenya (which is in desperate need of a medical doctor--by the end of the Assembly it appeared that someone had stepped forward to meet this need), and the work of Tony Curto in Uganda. He reported on the following additional needs for laborers: a third evangelist in Eritrea, a Bible school instructor in Muruu, Kenya, a second evangelist in Mbale, Uganda, and a second evangelist in the Middle East. Missionary to Eritrea, Charles Telfer, reported on his work. He issued a Macedonian call to the Assembly speaking of the great need for workers. Hailu Mekonnen, missionary to Ethiopia, told of God's answer to prayer in his recent success kidney transplant; he also spoke of his translation work and plans to return to Ethiopia. Victor Atallah, working out of Cyprus with Middle East Reformed Fellowship (MERF), spoke about the state of church in the Middle East and the training ministry of MERF.

Elections: The following men were nominated: Ministers: James Bosgraf, Al Tricarico, Lendall Smith, and Richard Gaffin and Elders: John Kinnaird and John Deliyannides. Messrs. Tricarico, Smith, Gaffin, Kinnaird and Deliyannides were elected.

11. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION (CCE). Rev. Larry Wilson, president of CCE, reported on the work of the committee. Rev. Tom Tyson, General Secretary of the CCE. He reported on the following publications and projects of the committee: a new pamphlet "What Is the Reformed Faith?", a retreat center called Camp Machen, discussions about a denominational seminary, the internship program, the new Trinity Songbook, a collection of contemporary music, the catechism video. He also reported on the work of the denominational magazine New Horizons; the magazine had focused on several controversial questions in recent month. Mr. Tyson sought forgiveness from those in the church who had been offended by his editorial work with the magazine. Rev. G.I. Williamson reported briefly on the work of The Ordained Servant, a magazine especially devoted to minsters, elders, and deacons in the church. Tom Patete reported on the work of Great Commission Publications (GCP) our joint publication effort with the Presbyterian Church in America. It was noted that the CCE will be receiving $400,000 in two installments from GCP to compensate for unequal contributions to GCP from the PCA and OPC when it was not a self-supporting enterprise. Cliff Collins reported on recent work providing an OPC web site (http://www.opc.org) and email service for ministers.

Elections: The following men were nominated: Ministers: John Galbraith, Allen Curry, Jack Peterson, William Shishko, Norman De Jong; Elders: Paul MacDonald, F. Kingsley Elder. Ministers Galbraith, Shishko and Curry and Elders MacDonald and Elder were elected. Galbraith and Shishko were elected to the Ministerial Training sub-committee.

12. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOME MISSIONS AND CHURCH EXTENSION (CHMCE). Rev. John Hilbelink, president of CHMCE, reported on the work of the committee. He noted that 10 new mission works, receiving financial assistance from the committee had begun during 1995 (Boise, Idaho; Cumming, Georgia, Eureka, California, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gwynedd, Pennsylvania; Indiana, Pennsylvania; Ionia, Michigan; New Lenox, Illinois, Mansfield, Ohio; Oak Harbor, Washington. He also mentioned the work of several regional home missionaries (James Bosgraf, Midwest; James Heemstra, South; Curto, Southern California, Chip Stonehouse, Philadelphia, Don Taws, New Jersey. He noted a working paper of the committee, "On the More Effective Establishment of New Regional Churches"

Ross Graham, General Secretary of CHMCE, reported on recent church planting efforts. The report of the committee contained a resolution concerning the involvement of the CHMCE with the Center for Urban Theological Studies (CUTS) through the years and the reason for its decision to discontinue support. Home missionaries Edward Gross (Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania) and Robert Van Kooten (Oak Harbor, Washington) also told of their church planting efforts.

Elections: The following men were nominated: Ministers: David O'Leary, William Warren, Randall Bergquist, Larry Mininger; Elders: John DeBruin, Steve VanderHill, Jack Julien.. Ministers O'Leary, Warren and Bergquist and Elders VanderHill and Julien were elected.

13. COMMITTEE ON COORDINATION (COC). The COC works with the Committee on Christian Education, the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension, the Committee on Foregin Missions (known jointly as Worldwide Outreach) to prepare the budget and to oversee the promotion of the committees' work.

The following budget for Worldwide Outreach was approved by the Assembly:

Approved
Budget

Christian Education $ 165,000 11.7%
Foreign Missions 710,000 50.2%
Home Missions 540,000 38.1%
Sub-total $ 1,355,000 100.0%

New Horizons 175,000
Coordination 170,000

Total 1997 Worldwide Outreach $ 1,760,000

If you divide this total by the number of communicant members and ministers, the amount is $120 per member. This 1997 budget is a 6.0% increase over the 1996 budget.

Elections: The following men were nominated and elected: Ministers: Jonathon Male; Elders: Louis LaBriola.

14. LOFTON APPEAL. A judicial case originating at Covenant OPC in Burtonsville, MD in the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic was appealed to the 63rd General Assembly. Mr. John Lofton had been tried and found guilty of "the sin of contentiousness..., [i.e.] manifestly outwardly quarrelsome speech and behavior." This arose out of an argument involving Mr. Lofton and others that took place following a worship service at Covenant OPC. There were two specifications of error concerning actions of the session (which had been denied by the Presbytery of the Mid Atlantic): 1) that the Session had treated the matter in question as a public offense when, according to Mr. Lofton, it was a private offense and 2) that two members of the Session were biased against him. There was one additional specification of error concerning the action of the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic that the presbytery never determined whether the error is of such importance as to require a reversal or modification of the judgment after it had found the Covenant Session in error for banning him from the Lord's Supper during the appeal process. The General Assembly denied the first two specifications of error and sustained the third specifications of error. The Assembly determined that the error is not of such importance as to require a reversal or judgment.

15. OVERTURES. Overtures are requests by presbyteries for the General Assembly to take some action. Many overtures are related to the work of the various standing and special committees and are handled by the Assembly when the work of those committees is discussed.

Overture 1. The Presbytery of the Dakotas overtured the 63rd General Assembly to divide the presbytery into a continuing Presbyteryof the Dakotas and a new Presbytery of the Central US (the geographic bounds being the entire states of Kansas and Nebraska and parts of Oklahoma and Missouri. The new presbytery would initially consist of four churches (6 ministers and 180 communicant members). Overture 1 was granted to take effect on January 1, 1997.

Overture 2. The Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic overtured the 63rd General Assembly to propose an amendment to the Form of Government that would allow for ministers to transfer into a another presbytery without a call. The Assembly proposed an amendment to Form of Government XXIII by adding a new section 21 that provides for this. Overture 2 was granted.

Overture 3. The Presbytery of the Dakotas overtured the 63rd General Assembly to suspend the ecclesiastical relationship between the OPC and the Christian Reformed Church of North America "until such time as there is evidence of repentance by way of (1) the termination of tolerance of homosexuality, and (2) the exercise of discipline against those who have violated Scriputre and the Belgic Confession Art. 30 in ordaining women to the office of ruling and/or teaching elder." The action of the Assembly concerning Recommendation 1 of the Committee on Ecumenicity and Interchurch Relations was deemed a sufficient response to Overture 3.

Overture 4. The Presbytery of the Northwest overtured the 63rd General Assembly to "initiate the action necessary to change the third ordination vow of church officers by deleting the words "and worship." One of the grounds given is that "certain provisions of the Directory for Worship run contrary to worship practices in the OPC that are widespread and commonly regarded as Scriptural, and thus the strict enfourcement of the Directory for Worship would prove divisive." Overture 4 was denied.

Overture 5. The Presbytery of New York and New England overtured the 63rd General Assembly to direct the Committee on Ecumenicity and Interchurch Relations to initiate action to remove the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) from the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council if the CRCNA does not repent of and rescind the action of Synod 1995 which permits the ordination of women to ruling and teaching office. The Assembly referred this overture to the Committee on Ecumenicity and Interchurch Relations.

a. the element of "exchange of fraternal delegates at major assemblies" in our relationship of Ecclesiastical Fellowship with CRCNA shall be restricted as follows: the 63rd (1996) General Assembly advises the presbyteries of the OPC that they should no longer assume, by virtue of our previous unrestricted relationship, that the CRCNA is a church of like pactice for the purpose of the seating of corresponding members at presbytery (FOG XIV, 9).
[Comment: The decision of Synod 1995 to open the offices of elder, minister and evangelist to women means that there will be some officers of the CRCNA deemed qualified for office by the CRCNA who the OPC does not deem qualified for office.]
b. the element of "occasional pulpit fellowship" in our relationship of Ecclesiastical Fellowship with the CRCNA shall be discontinued, except at the discretion of the sessions.
c. the element of "intercommunion" in our relationship of Ecclesiastical Fellowship with the CRCNA shall be restricted as follows; the 63rd (1996) GA advises the lower judicatories of the OPC that they should no longer assume, by virtue of our previous unrestricted relationship, that the CRCNA is a church of like practice for purposes of the reception of members (BD II.B.2), the removal of members (BD II.B.3), and erasure (BD V.2)

The KAPC was founded in1978 and now has 580 ordained ministers, 16 presbyteries around the world, and a membership of 35,000. He reported that their General Assembly recently called upon the CRC to repent of and rescind its action with respect to women in office. They also began having fraternal relations with the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS). He reminded us of their practice of gathering for prayer every morning at 5:00 am.

In 1996 the RCJ celebrated its 50th anniversary. They now have 9000 members and 5000 comunicant members in 80 churches and 50 unorganized works. There are two publications to celebrate this occasion: a history of the RCJ and publication of Genevan Psalms for use in their churches. In Japan believers and interested people comprise less than 10% of the population. People in Japan have no experience in choosing their own religions which is no surprise after nearly 300 years of suppression of Christianity. Evangelistic work is difficult because it takes 5 years to get someone even interested, 5 more years to become friendly to the idea, and 5 more years for conversion.

He noted the many similarities between the OPC and PCA. He noted that we are both separatists from former denomnations but take seriously Christ's command must be one and that present division is sin. Even though at present we are unable to find a way to unite, we are still committed to the unity of the church.

Last year the OPC had taken steps to establish ecclesiastical relations with the BPC. At their synod the motion to ratify fraternal relations was tabled. This was not a surprise. Some internal discussions still need to be carried out. He asked for our continued patience.

The relationship between our two denominations extends way back. He asked members of the Assembly to stand if they had been memembers of the CRC, had married members of the CRC, or if their children had become CRC (1/4 of the assembly stood). In sharing so much we feel more pain with regard to the differences. Is the CRC being divided by the issue of women in office? There is public debate and both sides speak freely and with integrity. The new overtures this year are evidence that people have not walked away from the church. The CRC has debated this issue for over 20 years. Their stubbornness to let go of the issue testifies of their Dutch roots, but also a commitment to a Biblical notion of truth. We wnat to be submissive to scriputre. Other controversial issues that are before them: homosexuality, worship styles, ties with GKN, church growth. The CRC strives to be guided by the Word of God. However, there are differences on how that Word is interpreted. We are being true to the reformed tradition--reformed and always reforming. Concerning Article 3 of church order (women in church office)--they have studied this issue for 20 years. The decision of Synod 1995 was the result of a cooperative and amicable spirit to make women in church office a local option in response to local need. A dozen classes have made such a declaration and the decision is in effect until the year 2000. He noted the proposed action of the OPC's ecumenicity committee. How can you ask us to repent of a decision that was arrived at with long study and with great anguish. Haven't we come too far and and don't we share too much to slam the door on each other over this difference? I plead for a sense of charity. Some form of restricted relations might be possible. Plead that we learn to respect our differences and continue to build on our stregnths. Our time on this earth is too short and the needs and hurts of this world are too great to do otherwise.

The RCUS celebrated its 250th anniversary. A commemorative book You Shall Be My People edited by Hoeflinger and Grossman reviewed the history of interactions with the OPC since 1960. The RCUS has 4 classes, now a synod, 4250 members, 3162 communicant members, 38 congregations and 31 ministers. They declined a joint synod/assembly in 1998. They authorized committees to meet in joint meetings with OPC committee. The Synod has backed away a bit from union by not using the phrase "organic union" when speaking about our ecclesiastical relations.

He noted that you (the OPC) were narrow minded brothers to stand with us. Narrow in a good sense‹straight is the path and narrow the way.

The Session of Harvest Orthodox Presbyterian Church erred in:

1. Denying the request of the Defense to dismiss Charge 1 on the grounds that said charge is not an offense serious enough to warrant a trial.
2. Finding the accused guilty of Charge 1 when said charge is not a chargeable offense.

Grounds:

a. According to the Book of Discipline, an offense which is serious enough to warrant a trial in the area of doctrine for the ordained officer is a violation of the system of doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures as that system of doctrine is set forth in our Confession of Faith and Catechisms (BD III.7.b). Since nothing in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms is denied by the accused and since the Confession of Faith and Catechisms do not address the narrow question of the animal ancestry of Adam's body, the view in question cannot be considered a doctrinal offense as defined by the Book of Discipline. (See Appendix 1.)
b. There are no theological implications of the view held by the accused, i.e. no doctrine of the Confession or Catechisms is affected by this view. (See Appendix 2.)
c. Scripture does not forbid the view held by the accused. (See Appendix 3.)
d. The view of the accused is nearly identical to a view discussed and permitted by such orthodox Reformed theologians as B.B. Warfield and J.G. Machen. (See Appendix 4.)
e. Because the Confession or Catechisms nor the text of scripture forbids the view of the accused, it should be permitted as a matter of liberty even though many may not accept this view. (See Appendix 5.)