These are the personal ponderings of a General Assembly fan and observer. Hope you'll join the conversation.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Commissioned Ruling Elders

So the Presbytery of Santa Fe met up with a dilemma last year.  One of our Commissioned Ruling Elders had been invited to perform the wedding of a member of her family who lived out of state. The Book of Order is very clear that CREs are only commissioned to a certain congregation and only to perform certain responsibilities.  We contacted our friend Joyce Lieberman in the Office of General Assembly, who basically said that we were not the only presbytery to inquire about this possibility.  Since there were others who had similar questions, she suggested that we could ask for an Constitutional Interpretation on G-2.1001 in the Book of Order.

An Authoritative Interpretation is kind of like "mishnah on the Torah" - or, commentary on the law. It answers a question that has been posed by reflecting on the matter at hand as well as on the written word.

On behalf of the Presbytery, I as Stated Clerk wrote to request a ruling on this.  It was given to the Advisory Committee on the Constitution, who gave a ruling on which the Assembly was called to vote.  They said that a CRE "is not authorized to perform any pastoral service outside the commission by the presbytery unless the presbytery gives its permission for any specific service.  If the request is for pastoral service within the bounds of another presbytery, the commissioning presbytery must also agree to the request."

This makes a lot of sense. It is similar to Teaching Elders seeking permission to labor within the bounds of another presbytery. And in the case of our presbytery, it will be easy to accommodate since we have a Commission on Ministry. If a CRE would like to serve communion or perform a marriage in another presbytery, it is possible - but permission would need to be sought (through the Stated Clerk chain) from the other presbytery as well as our own. The body passed it this evening, 87%-13%.


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