The PCA Is More Than One Week in June
General Ramblings on General Assembly
General Assembly week is a combination of so many things. It is worship services, debates, committee meetings, reports, reunions with old friends, before-prayers and after-prayers, late-night conversations, floor speeches, parliamentary confusion, and occasional moments of profound wisdom from godly churchmen.
It is exhausting. It is good. And, every year, when it is over, most of us face the temptation to interpret the whole denomination through the lens of those few days.
General Assembly is important. Overtures are debated and responded to, reports are received, elections take place that influence the direction of permanent committees and agencies. Much more than just rubber stamping, real work is done accomplished at General Assembly.
But we should be careful not to measure the health, faithfulness, or future of the whole church by one week of denominational business, however important that week may be.
When GA is over, I want to resist two temptations.
The first is the temptation to shrug it off, as if none of it matters. That will not do. Our doctrine, order, discipline, and worship have been handed down to us by Christ and they must be well-maintained according to His Word. Our GA decisions matter because Christ’s church matters. Don’t shrug off the work of the Assembly.
The second is the temptation to panic. The whole condition of the PCA cannot be read from a handful of speeches, votes, reports, or procedural decisions. That will not do either.
The PCA is not merely what happens on the floor of General Assembly. She is what happens in pulpits, session rooms, hospitals, living rooms, presbytery exams, mission fields, church plants, prayer meetings, and Lord’s Day worship all across the country and around the world.
Because of that, our evaluation of the PCA should be serious and honest, but not frantic or cynical, and certainly not naive.
One of the hardest things about Presbyterianism is also one of its gifts: it is slow. We must endure more than momentary annual enthusiasm (try listening to Polity Matters regularly to keep this less than momentary).
We need to deliberate and discuss together over lunches and drinks and pre-presbytery gatherings and text groups (yikes!) and Zoom calls. We have to stifle our inner desires for popularity and recognition and do long slow plodding work. That slowness can be maddening. But it is the wisdom of the system.
Our slowness forces us to keep dealing with one another. It forces us to attempt persuasion instead of just pronouncing things on social media. Indeed, elders are compelled by their ordination vows to be persuadable. Be teachable and flexible in matters that allow it.
Of course, slowness can become cowardice. Process can become evasion and passivity. But the answer is not to despise the courts of the church. The answer is to serve them better.
That is (part of) why I am committed to the PCA. These are my brothers in Christ. These are Christ’s churches and courts. These are the debates of weak and godly men who must lean up the Savior moment by moment.
I do not want to be merely a commentator on the PCA. I want to be a faithful churchman. And the main reason I have hope for the PCA is not that I trust the PCA. It is that I trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is the King and Head of the PCA. He bought her with His blood. He gathers, defends, preserves, and perfects His people. He rules His church by His Word and Spirit. He uses preaching, sacraments, prayer, discipline, shepherding, courts, and the faithfulness of ordinary officers.
And because Christ is King, we do not have to panic.
The future of the PCA does not rest finally on parliamentary skill, committee strategy, institutional branding, online commentary, or voting margins. Those things may matter in their place. But they are not ultimate.
The church is in better hands than ours.
So I am committed to the PCA for the long haul.
Not because that annual June week is encouraging (but it often is).
Not because every debate is clarifying (sometimes they are).
Not because every decision is what I would have wanted (I’m at about 80/20 for the 53rd).
But because Christ is the King and Head of the PCA.
May the Lord have mercy on the Presbyterian Church in America.
May He purify us, preserve us, make us faithful, and prosper the work of our hands.