The session is the local council of the church.  Representatives from each local church session make up another group called the Presbytery that supports local churches and makes sure they and their pastors adhere to a reform understanding of how a church should operate.

During the reformation the Lutheran and, later, the Episcopalian schisms maintained bishops to order the life of the church.  John Calvin took another direction:  a consistery was formed of clergy and lay people to make decisions for the churches of Geneva. They used a representative model to govern the church.  In Scotland, John Knox created a session for the local church and a regional presbytery so that many churches could work together to ensure good order in each local church (or kirk). Today we continue to use that language.

In the reform tradition the church does not bring everyone together to vote on every important issue.  That could become cumbersome.  In fact, the congregation only comes together to vote on a few, select, issues such as who will lead the church as elders.

We believe it is best to select representatives to serve as a council, ordaining and installing them to the important work of governing the church.  This is the task of "ruling elders."

Our session is made up of 11 members of the church that have been selected at the congregational meeting.  They were ordained as elders of the church and installed to serve actively on the session:  Barbara Bulkeley, Colleen Culbertson, Greg Fritz, Dennis Jacobs, Mike Lampson, Ken Larson, Rhonda LeFebvre, Sharon Martin, Phyllis Murphy, Susan Rinehart, and Joanne Stewart.  Though not a member of session, Debbie Strauch has continued to serve as Clerk of Session and Rev. Carnes, as the Minister of Word and Sacraments, is the Moderator of the session (chairperson, more or less).  Each ruling elder also takes responsibility to be chair of at least one committee which can be made up of any member of the church.

Though they are called "ruling elders," don't let that archaic term confuse you.  Serving on session is about (1) knowing one's church.  (2) It's about passionately caring for the mission of the church and (3) it's about making sure that our programs and budget take seriously our tradition and are focused closely on our on-going mission.

These are people who want our church, its staff, all of the committees, and our entire Galesburg community to be successful and they are always glad to hear from others in the congregation so they can do that job well!