The Session
Elders make decisions for the local parish through an elected council called the Session (Latin. sessio from sedere "to sit"), sometimes the Kirk session, church session, or (in Continental Reformed usage) consistory. The members of the session are the pastor(s) of that congregation (sometimes referred to as a teaching elder), and the installed ruling or canon elders (ruling or canon because they are responsible for measuring the spiritual life and work of a congregation). In some Continental Reformed churches, also deacons are members of the consistory.
In most denominations, the pastor serves as Moderator and thus presides over the session (primus inter pares). All elders have an equal vote in the session. In some denominations, the pastor is given no vote, however in a sitting body of an even number or with a quorum of the session counted she or he can break a tie with a casting vote.
In the Polity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the pastor and associate pastor(s) have a vote as members of the session on any and all matters; however, oftentimes she or he refrains from voting except in tie situations. The Pastor is not a voting member of the congregation.
Read more about this topic: Presbyterian Polity, Governing Bodies
Famous quotes containing the word session:
“The bar is the male kingdom. For centuries it was the bastion of male privilege, the gathering place for men away from their women, a place where men could go to freely indulge in The Bull Session ... the release of the guilty anxiety of the oppressor class.”
—Shulamith Firestone (b. 1945)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)