Saints, thank you for your prayers for the General Assembly which met a few weeks ago in Memphis. We were able to gather for worship and to conduct our business without any protests and only one incident of crime (someone was mugged). Someone asked me to summarize in three words. I said, “Celebratory and cordial”. Celebratory because it was our 50th anniversary and we spent much time giving thanks and rejoicing in all the ways God has blessed us as a denomination. And cordial because the discussions and debates were much less heated than they have been the previous several years.

I am going to give a brief summary here. If you would like a more detailed account, you can find the summary of the stated clerk of the PCA here.

Here are some key numbers that demonstrate how the Lord has and continues to bless the PCA.

• Our denomination consists of almost 400,000 members and 2,000 churches today.  For comparison, those numbers were 41,000 and 240 when the PCA began
• MTW now has almost 600 long-term missionaries in 100 nations
• After a slowdown due to the pandemic, church planting efforts are back to a rate of planting a new church every two weeks on average.
• RUF has grown to 180 campuses, 23 RUF-International works (reaching international students attending U.S. universities and colleges), and six RUF Global groups (located in other countries)
• The Lord has also stirred up the grace of liberality as contributions surpassed one billion dollars for the first time

Numerous overtures were sent to the Assembly for debate and deliberation.  These overtures covered a variety of topics and issues.  These include:

• How do our committees and agencies (such as RUF, MNA, MTW) relate to the Assembly given our growth. Like any organization, growth brings new challenges. We are wrestling with the tension of not wanting to hinder ministry yet also providing appropriate oversight.
• Refining our judicial process so that we can handle accusations of abuse with compassion and wisdom that both appropriately cares for the accusers while also dealing justly with the accused. We gave final approval to changes that would allow someone to testify by video conference rather than in person as well as have questions from the accused read to the accuser by another person. We rejected an overture to allow atheists to testify in church trials.
• Making sure that our ordained officers (elders and deacons) hold to a biblical sexual ethic in their convictions, character, and conduct.
• Addressing cultural issues such as medical transitioning for minors. An overture passed to petition the various levels of government to end sex-change procedures for minors. A committee will be appointed to draft this petition, so please be in prayer for them.

In closing, I ask you to keep praying. Some of the overtures that passed which seek to change our Book of Church Order will now go to the presbyteries for the next step in approval. Pray for wisdom as elders debate and vote on these issues. Pray also for a continuing spirit of unity in the PCA. We are not seeking uniformity but it was an encouragement to many that we were able to debate and even disagree as brothers in the Lord. Finally, particularly pray for Covenant College, our denomination’s college in Lookout Mountain, GA, as they search for their next president.

As always, if you have any questions about the Assembly, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.