General Council Addresses Ineligibility, Affiliation Issues
The Church of God International General Assembly, meeting in Orlando, Florida this week, continued their deliberation on a number of issues.
Thursday afternoon’s business session began by resuming business from the morning session on Item 12 regarding the eligibility of ministers who are late on their ministerial reports and church reports for election or appointment. After much debate including proposed, adopted and rejected amendments, the item was approved making these ministers ineligible both at the state/regional and international levels of our church.
Items 13, 14 and 15 were approved by house vote. These items dealt with ineligibility of ministers to serve on the Executive Council who present budgets to a divisional leader, the deletion of the state overseer commissioning service, and allowing up to two weeks for appointments to be announced.
Item 16 also passed, which prioritizes the net gain of disbanded church property sales for church planting.
Finally, Item 17 regarding the opportunities for churches outside of our denomination to become affiliated with the Church of God was discussed at great length. This debate was resumed on Friday morning after the time ran out for debate in the afternoon session.
