History Made at the General Assembly

Day one of the business sessions started today. It was not business as usual. I must confess, there have been times over the years of ministry, that I have not been proud to have been associated with the Church of God (COG); today was not one of those days. I was very proud to be part of such a great movement. From the opening prayer, lead with such passion by Ray H. Hughes, a giant of the Christian faith, to the following elections, it was a great day.

First of all, Raymond Culpepper was elected (nominated) to the position of Presiding Bishop (PB). This is, of course, pending the approval by the General Assembly. Raymond promised to bring three things to the COG: prayer, mission, and trust. Following his election, Tim Hill was elected as the 1st Assistant to the PB.

However, I am most excited about the election of Mark Williams to the position of 2nd Assistant to the PB. Mark Williams is an outstanding leader, and is a missionally minded guy. He promised to bring transparency and to be missional. It the cards are played right, what you have is this: over the next 4 years, the opportunity for Raymond Culpepper to do some house cleaning and rebuild trust with the local churches, then for Mark Williams to step in and take a whole new COG into the next decade with a missional mindset. Very exciting! The spot of 3rd Assistant to the PB went to David Griffis.

The best news hasn't come yet. In a historical move, Wallace Sibley, a black minister, was elected the spot of General Secretary/Treasurer. This is the first time that any man of color has served on the Executive Committee. He received an amazing ovation, and the men of the COG have genuinely committed themselves to change. There has been a true changing of the guard. The men of the past generation have finally left their positions of leadership. They have lead well, and with much integrity; but change was inevitable, and it is finally coming.

To add to all this, Bishop Pagan was elected as the Assistant Director of World Missions. This too is a landmark moment, because he is a Hispanic missionary from the field, who has been elected to serve in a General capacity. He too received an ovation.

The night ended with the election of the Council of Eighteen. We have only elected 5 spots on this council, and so far, 4 of the 5 are pastors. This is good, because the council serves as a counsel to the administrators on the Executive Committee. The council needs to be pastors to offer a balanced view from both the administrators and the filed workers. It looks like a good balance of pastors is going to be on this council. There were a couple of motions concerning the election of the 18 that I thought were mishandled, but overall I think we are making great strides.