One of the discussed topics was the implementation of an African-American Sunday school curriculum. While in principle the effort was endorsed, because of budget implications the full Assembly chose to follow the committee's recommendation and hire a coordinator, but not allocate money for additional curriculum development or leadership training.
The first committee that ran out of time was Global Service, Witness, and Mission. As you could imagine, debate on a report on the Middle East went long and used up the allotted time before a vote was taken. It will be put off to Friday night.
One of the more interesting reports was the committee on Catechisms and Confessions. We approved a bunch of routine measures related to the new catechism being worked on. New explanatory material for the Book of Confessions was approved. There were measures to include confessional material related to our heritage, trying to include a confession which John Calvin was involved with. Both the Genevan Catechism and the French Confession were proposed, the latter being endorsed by the committee primarily because the first is quite long. After much discussion it was decided to follow the committee's recommendation and the French Catechism now enters the process for inclusion.
We next turned to confessions already in the book. After much debate it was decided by a vote of 275 to 220 to initiate the process to replace the present version of the Nicene Creed with the ecumenical version. On the other hand, it was decided by a vote of 217 to 274 not to initiate the process which would place a new translation of the Heidelberg Catechism in the book.
The final report of the evening was the advisory committee on Social Witness. This is the longest report which we have received so far (24 pages of business not counting appendices) with over 50 action items dealing with welfare and poverty, religious persecution, children, disarmament, Cuba, managed care, immigration, and human rights. No need to tell you that some items were controversial and that debate was extended twice to get it all in.
We finished at a reasonable hour none-the-less but it is looking to get worse. If I remember the announcements COCU and ecumenical relations are tomorrow afternoon and the changes to "fidelity and chastity" are Friday afternoon. I thank you for your prayers on these subjects.
In Christ
Steve