| GENERAL ASSEMBLY RENEWAL MEETING
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

NOVEMBER 4/5, 1993

JOHN M. BUCHANAN

The questions...

1) What do you think from the perspective of Reformed
theology, should be the primary purpose of the General
Assembly session?

2) Should the legislative emphasis of the session be de~
creased and the learning/inspirational content in-
creased?

~~ invite an inquiry into the nature of the church. And, fron
the perspective of my Reformed heritage I am reminded initially
of what the church is not,

The church is not a hierarchy, clerical or bureaucratic. Not
that hierarcies and bureaucracies don't become convinced of the
opposite. The altercations in Wittenberg and Geneva, however,
remind me that the church is the people of God, gathered and
dispersed in the name of Jesus Christ, energized and led by the
Holy Spirit. And that ecclesiastical systems, including
hierarchies and bureaucracies, exist to assist the church to be
faithful.

Thomas Jefferson's suggestion that organizational systems need an
occasional revolution to remind them of the reason for existing
is provocative. We are, I believe, in the middle of one, a
gentle revolution to be sure, forced on us by the hard realities
of shifting financial support, but a genuine revolution never-—
theless.

So the meeting of the General Assembly, reduced in time because
of financial constraints, ought to be measured by the degree to
which it helps the Presbyterian Church to be the church faithful-
ly, to identify what the Church perceives to be God's will, and
then holds the church accountable for the doing of its mission.

We are not the established church of the realm. We cannot be all
things and do all things. We can no ienger try to do things we
used to do because we don't have enough money.

Regarding meetings of the General Assembly -- we have, I think,
three alternatives with several variations on the themes.