Last week I was in Western Pennsylvania for a family wedding, a place where Presbyterian churches are as numerous as Mexican restaurants in Phoenix. It is the cradle of the Presbyterian religion in the United States and Pittsburgh will host the 220th General Assembly on June 30-July 7. So I thought I might share a bit about our polity — how we govern ourselves. Our hierarchy has four levels- session, presbytery, synod, and general assembly. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has over 11,000 congregations which are organized into 173 presbyteries (district governing bodies) and 16 synods (regional governing bodies). The session is the governing body at the local church level. Ours is comprised of twelve ruling elders and all of the installed pastors. The senior pastor typically moderates the session. Pinnacle is in Grand Canyon Presbytery, a group of 70 Presbyterian churches in...