PCA HISTORICAL CENTER
Archives and Manuscript Repository for the Continuing Presbyterian Church


The Historical Development of the Book of Church Order

Chapter 12 : The Church Session

Paragraph 7 : Of Session Minutes

12-7. Every Session shall keep an accurate record of its proceedings, which record shall be submitted at least once in every year to the inspection of the Presbytery.

DIGEST: The language here was updated in 1974, changing the wording from "fair" to "accurate". Otherwise the current text remains that of PCUSA 1821. While "fair" might seem to imply "approximate" in this sentence, the earlier sense of the word was "even-handed" or "objective" and so the change to "accurate" is an appropriate updating of the language. Use of the term "accurate" here also brings this wording into harmony with other denominational documents: the Directory for Worship (8.5, p. 157); denominational Bylaws (4.3 & 4.4, p. 73); and in the Bylaws of the Women in the Church organization (III.3.B, p. 176) [citing page numbers from the 1973 GA Minutes]

BACKGROUND & COMPARISON:
1. PCA 1973, 13-8, Adopted text, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, p. 133
2. Continuing Presbyterian Church 1973, Proposed text,
3. PCUS 1933, XIV, § 67
4. PCUS 1925, XIV, § 67
5. PCUS 1879, V-3-7

Every Session shall keep a fair record of its proceedings, which record shall be at least once in every year submitted to the inspection of the Presbytery.

PCUS 1869 draft, V-3-7
Every Session shall keep a fair record of its proceedings, which record shall be, at least once in every year, submitted to the inspection of the Presbytery.

PCUS 1867 draft, V-3-9
Every session shall keep a fair record of its proceedings, which record shall be at least once in every year submitted to the inspection of the presbytery.

PCUSA 1821, IX-8
Every session shall keep a fair record of its proceedings; which record shall be, at least once in every year, submitted to the inspection of the presbytery.

COMMENTARY:
F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order
(1898, p. 88), on V-3-7 :
69.--VII. Every Session shall keep a fair record of its proceedings, which record shall be at least once in every year submitted to the inspection of the Presbytery.
The record should show all the proceedings of Session ; and the records of congregational meetings may be ordered spread upon its own records, as may any communication or document referred to the Session. If the Session fails to submit its records at the first stated meeting of Presbytery in any year, it should submit them at the next stated meeting in the same year
.