Earlier today, the PCA’s Administrative Committee (AC), comprised of 11 teaching and ruling elders, along with nine representatives from PCA committees and boards, unanimously approved the “PCA Strategic Plan.” The 20 voters came from presbyteries ranging from metropolitan New York to rural Georgia and included businessmen, pastors, and ministry leaders ranging from about 35 to 70 years old.

The Plan was commissioned by the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC), which is comprised of the coordinators and presidents of PCA agencies and committees, and the past six moderators of the General Assembly.

Citing slowed growth within the denomination and a shifting cultural landscape, the CMC hoped to create a roadmap to future cohesion and growth within the PCA.

“We want to help the PCA identify its challenges, address them with strategies consistent with our biblical values, and build denominational support,” said Dr. Bryan Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary, who led the PCA Strategic Plan process on behalf of the Cooperative Ministries Committee. “We intend to propose plans for using our resources and blessings in ways that we pray will unite and ignite God’s people for His purposes.”

The Plan is two years in the making, and has been approved unanimously by the CMC.

Identifying Areas of Growth

As the PCA enters its fourth decade, it must accelerate its efforts to reach a rapidly changing world, according to the Plan. External challenges to the church include the increasing dominance of pluralism, the transition from Anglo-majority culture in the U.S., and a loss of Christian consensus in the West.

“Through its transformed people, the church of Jesus Christ is the most powerful change agent in any society,” said Chapell.

But internal challenges exist as well. These include slowed growth, have and have-not divisions, generational divides, and perspectival divides.

The Plan concludes that the PCA has struggled to maximize its organizational strengths because its animating values (those that stimulate the daily activities of individuals, local churches, and denominational groups) are so much more diverse than its formal values (as stated in the approved standards of the church). Animating values may include reaching the lost, restoring the culture, or properly expressing the Reformed faith.

“For example,” Chapell says, “despite our formal values of connectional polity and cooperative ministry, less than half of the churches of the PCA [financially] support any denominational agency or committee.”

In effect, he says, “Our doctrine is Presbyterian, but our practice is Baptistic.”

Plan Recommendations

The Strategic Plan offers a number of recommendations to address the challenges it has identified. One of these, which supports a move toward “participating communally in God’s global mission,” is a proposed funding plan for the PCA’s Administrative Committee. The AC is charged with overseeing the operations of General Assembly, assisting churches with their search for a new pastor, supporting presbytery clerks, and maintaining historical records. [ByFaith magazine also falls within the auspices of the AC.]  

“It is reasonable that churches and ministers who are members of the PCA have a minimal requirement to fund essential support services, as is the practice of most other denominations,” said Chapell. “This change would help present and future generations grasp the power of working together in God’s mission.”

The Strategic Plan recommends that an annual registration fee be required from denominational churches, presbyteries, and teaching elders to meet support service needs within the PCA. This fee would take the place of the current General Assembly registration fee if the funding plan is approved.

The proposed church fee would average one-third of one percent.

The proposed church fee would be proportional based on tithes and offerings, averaging one-third of one percent. Teaching elders would pay an annual registration fee of $100, and presbyteries would pay a fee of $500 for the local General Assembly host committee. Under the proposal, the $400 per commissioner fee to the General Assembly would be eliminated. Partnership share giving to other agencies and committees would not change.

Other recommendations offered by the Strategic Plan include creating safe places to discuss controversial topics, like no-risk, no-vote evening forums at GA; and developing more seats at the table for women, minorities, global church representatives, and the younger generation. In some instances those seats will be created through alternative credentialing or certification for vocational ministry roles.

Next Steps

The Cooperative Ministries Committee will submit the Strategic Plan for approval at General Assembly, to be held June 29-July 2 in Nashville, Tenn. If passed, portions of the Plan that require Book of Church Order (BCO) amendment will go to the presbyteries for approval. 

“It is our hope to identify the resources and blessings God has granted the PCA,” said Chapell.  “All of this we do because we believe we have a mission, and we believe the vast majority of those in the PCA believe the same.”

Please click here to review the Strategic Plan, Bryan Chapell's video presentation, and other relevant documents.