Continuing its pattern of monthly meetings, the Unification Commission gathered via Zoom Sunday afternoon to hear reports from the four work groups the commission formed during its most recent meeting, March 9-11 in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Unification Commission spent the bulk of its Saturday morning together divided into the four teams that will do much of the commission’s work over the coming months.
It took commissioners all day Friday, but by the end of the second day of Unification Commission meetings, the 12-member group had spread the considerable work it must complete over four teams: Governance, Financials, Common Mission and Consultations. Two or three commissioners volunteered themselves for each of the four teams.
On Thursday during the first day of what will be a three-day session in the conference center at the Presbyterian Center, the Unification Commission heard from the two people who will be most responsible for what a unified Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency will be: the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, and the Rev. Dr. Diane Givens Moffett.
During its monthly meeting, the Unification Commission went to school Saturday, receiving lessons on the histories of the Office of the General Assembly, the Presbyterian Mission Agency and, more recently, the Administrative Services Group. Members also took in a statistical overview of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other communities of faith.
Calling herself a sometimes “reluctant pursuer of hearing God’s voice,” the Rev. Ruth Faith Santana-Grace nonetheless picked up the phone one day early in 2022 and “made a blind call to this dear sister and now friend,” the Rev. Shavon Starling-Louis, to discuss standing for the office of Co-Moderators. The rest is history, of course: in June 2022, commissioners to the 225th General Assembly elected the two as Co-Moderators, offices they hold right up until the 226th General Assembly, set to be held online and in-person in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2024.
Meeting for second time on Saturday, members of the Commission to Unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency — known informally as the Unification Commission — determined the online platform they will use to share their work with each other and with the Church at large.
The 12-member Commission to Unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency held its first meeting via Zoom on Saturday. Members — six of them pastors and the others ruling elders — discussed the scope of the task before them and some of the deadlines that will mark what could be a four-year journey together.
