Thank you for allowing me to step away from Ashburn and King’s Cross to attend the annual General Assembly meeting of our denomination. This took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I once served as pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church. For this reason, General Assembly was also a kind of reunion with friends whom I had not seen in a long time. I benefited from the wisdom of Covenant Presbyterian elders who encouraged the church body to visit (and volunteer to serve) the General Assembly. This made it so convenient to reconnect with brothers and sisters.
For every PCA elder, General Assembly is a significant time to reconnect with friends and ministry colleagues both for fellowship, and sharing notes. Our presbytery, the Potomac Presbytery, is geographically broad, a far cry from the density of PCA churches in Chattanooga, so professional loneliness is a real risk here. I offer a special thanks to you, our elders and deacons, and our staff, for making it possible for me to attend General Assembly.
In writing this summary I reflected on my personal notes taken while hearing reports delivered at General Assembly, summarized in my other post, The Fourth Best Denomination in the World. Below you will find my Polaroid snapshot of General Assembly, with relevant links. For a fuller account, consider reading the General Assembly Recap and Stated Clerk’s Summary, both published at byFaith Magazine.
Worship
General Assembly opens with Scripture, worship, and communion, led by local presbyeries (full meeting agenda). The business of each General Assembly is led by a moderator, elected for one meeting, alternating year from year between an elder who pastors and an elder who governs. The moderator for this year was Kevin DeYoung, pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. The outgoing moderator is generally given the honor of preaching at the opening of the next General Assembly.
The preachers this year were elder Steve Dowling (Covenant Presbyterian Church in Auburn, AL), Pastor Dennis Louis (Chattanooga Valley Presbyterian Church in Flintstone, GA), and Dr. Dennis Johnson (Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, TN, and professor emeritus of Westminster Seminary California). You can watch the three worship services, and sermons, here, here, and here.
Changes Made Last Year
Like most denominations, the PCA uses a Book of Church Order (BCO) for everyday procedural guidance. It’s a short book, divided into thirds. The Form of Government, basic definitions about church life and the qualifications of elders and deacons, is around 20,000 words (about the size of Luke’s Gospel). The Rules of Discipline, which concerns relatively unusual circumstances, is around 12,000 words (about the size of Mark’s Gospel). The Directory for the Worship of God includes stipulations about public worship and is around 7,000 words (about the size of Romans), but only three chapters, about 3,000 words (about the size of Ephesians), are officially binding on PCA congregations.
Four changes to the BCO were adopted in 2024, but these still needed to be ratified by a majority of the 87 presbyteries, which they were. These had to do with how to receive ministers who transfer into the PCA from another denomination (emphasizing the scope of the exam and questions about family management) and how legal proceedings are adjudicated (mostly policies that assist the accused).
Reports from Various Agencies
The PCA is composed of several agency ministries and each presented a short report. Two reports were notable. First, the Stated Clerk of the PCA, the elder who leads the Administrative Committee, officially announced his retirement (hear the entire report). In May, Bryan Chapell participated in a GospelBound podcast in which he spoke uncharitably about other Reformed leaders (report of event, apology). In another notable report, the coordinator of Mission to North America, Irwyn Ince, was questioned about MNA actions earlier in the year (report of event, apology) along with budget-related matters, before being re-elected for a new term (hear the entire report).
As you can read about in my other post, The Fourth Best Denomination in the World, when agency reports are taken together, there are so many positive things happening in the various agencies of the PCA.
Presbytery Accountability
For most churches in the PCA, elders meet monthly. The elders of King’s Cross meet 11 times per year, four of which together with the deacons (see our church calendar). The elders of our presbytery, the Potomac Presbytery, review the minutes from each of those meetings. Every presbytery does this. In the same way, the Potomac Presbytery meets five times a year and the minutes for each of their meetings are reviewed by the General Assembly. The committee of General Assembly that does this is the Review of Presbytery Record (RPR).
This year the RPR noted quite a few errors in presbytery minutes. As an example, one presbytery seems to have permitted a minister to invite young children to the Lord’s Table without a thorough interview. Another presbytery seems to have given a presbytery committee too much authority. One presbytery dismissed a minister to a denomination deemed unfaithful, without citing this. The byFaith Magazine editors published an excellent summary of the committee’s work (or you hear it here and here).
Overtures
An overture is essentially a motion or a request for action, directed to the General Assembly. These typically come from a presbytery, but can also come from an individual. Each year all of the overtures are gathered together and vetted by a committee of 100 or so elders present at General Assembly. This committee, the Overtures Committee of Commissioners, exists for this one purpose.
The Overtures Committee will sometimes join overtures that are similar, make slight improvements to the language of an overture, or even find some overtures to be out of order. Among themselves, they will also vote for a way to respond to an overture: affirm, reject, postpone, or refer the overture back to the author for improvement. Their vote is not binding. Instead, the Overtures Committee presents to General Assembly the results of their votes, called the Report of the Overtures Committee. The entire General Assembly will affirm some of the Overtures Committee’s votes, overturn some, even propose different actions altogether. The entire General Assembly must vote in order for a path forward to become official.
All of the overtures, prior to the editing process of the Overtures Committee, are listed here. The easiest way to see how the General Assembly responded to the Overtures Report is to scan the byFaith Magazine General Assembly Recap and the Stated Clerk’s Summary. If you have several free hours, you can also listen to the Overtures Committee report here, here, and here.
Below are a few notable items but, again, look at the General Assembly Recap and Stated Clerk’s Summary for more details.
An overture that sought to clarify the role of an Assistant Pastor and one that addressed the amount of voting authority agency leaders have over the denomination, were referred back to their authors for clarification, the latter receiving a great deal of discussion. An overture to create a study committee concerning the implications of AI on church life was postponed until next year. An overture to write a pastoral letter stipulating the appropriate care for immigrants was postponed indefinitely.
An overture directed the Administrative Committee to no longer collect ethnicity data from churches (of course, only half of churches report any statistical information whatsoever). A similar overture sought to revise the operational handbook, but was unable to achieve the two third majority necessary to pass. Similarly, an overture to revise the Book of Church Order to insist presbyteries keep a roster of deacons, was also unable to achieve the two third majority necessary to pass.
An overture directed sessions to record (and report to presbytery) any differences that a new elder elder or deacon might have with the confessional statements of the denomination. Regarding interviewing young people to be admitted to the Lord’s Table, another overture directed sessions to evaluate a young person’s understanding of the Lord’s Table, in addition to their profession of faith and their understanding of the membership vows.
An overture to revise the membership vows, and an overture stipulating the minimum age for a member to vote, were both rejected. An overture to explicitly limit those who may “distribute” the elements of the Lord’s Table, elders and deacons only, received a great deal of debate, but was rejected.
One overture directed the review of editorial practices of the denominational magazine, byFaith Magazine, which will take place over the next two years. Another overture directed the formation of a study committee to study and critique Christian Nationalism.
One overture led to the PCA to follow the path of another denomination, Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America (RPCNA), by officially affirming a biblical statement on race originally written by the Associate Reformed Church (ARP), condemning “any theological or political teaching which posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity.” Another overture directed the denomination to form a study committee to draft a framework for corporate worship, revising our existing Directory for Worship, which could then be voted on at a later General Assembly as a document to guide worship services across the denomination.
