COVID has changed Synod’s work too.

After the cancelling of last year’s Reformed Presbyterian Synod meeting due to pandemic realities, the 2021 Synod will feel the pressure of a lost year as well as of continuing COVID adjustments. Travel restrictions mean that RPCNA delegates outside the U.S. will participate via videoconference. Fraternal delegates from other denominations won’t be joining at all. Delegates will be wearing masks and social distancing in a large room to comply with campus policies of the host site, Indiana Wesleyan University, in Marion, Ind.

Synod begins at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 14, and is expected to finish at noon on Thursday.

In a typical year, several communications, mostly from presbyteries or transferred by presbyteries, come to Synod. Because of the year’s hiatus, there are 19 communications for this Synod to consider. Nine of them relate to disciplinary matters, and five deal with proposed minor changes to the church’s procedures.

The Docket & Digest containing the reports on all these matters along with the more routine reports from presbyteries, boards, and committees, is nearly 800 pages long.

To facilitate completing the large agenda in under three days, a plan will be presented to deal with many of the communications in several different judicial committees that will report back to this same Synod. Also, reports without recommendations might be approved as a batch, without guaranteed time to make additional comments.

One big proposal before this Synod comes from six Canadian congregations of the St. Lawrence Presbytery who state that “The aforementioned RPCNA Canadian sessions are working towards being sent out by the 2022 RPCNA Synod to form an indigenous RP Church of Canada and request that the Synod work with us to facilitate that.” One goal of the move would be to enhance the ability to focus on bringing Christ’s kingship to bear in the Canadian context.

News reports from the Synod will be posted nightly to RPWitness.org.