“I think the passing of Overture 43, and the fruit that will come of it, will be a help in recruiting African-American pastors into our denomination. It demonstrates to them that we are real, not trying to cover up sins of the past or present, but owning them and seeking to grow from them.”

Collyn, a native of Iowa where her immigrant father operated several meat markets, began her relationship with the college in 1959 when Covenant was still located in St. Louis, Mo. She then played a variety of roles with Covenant over the next 40 years.

Robertson describes how, through the “messy work of the Gospel,” God has taken a congregation from its racist past to aggressively becoming a multi-ethnic congregation.

Recently, the PCA Foundation reached the major milestone of $150,000,000 in total distributions to PCA churches, PCA Committees and Agencies, and other Christian ministries.

“It was a response to the Gospel calling us to love our neighbors as ourselves,” Anderson explains. “The church wanted to bring a balance between word and deed ministry and create an appealing service opportunity for men.”

In his annual report, Stated Clerk of the PCA General Assembly L. Roy Taylor reported that in 2015 the denomination had 1,534 churches, an increase of 35 from the previous year.

Seeing what’s happening now as we see them forced into boats and crossing the ocean, trying to find safety — I feel like their plight should be well-known and well-understood to us by now. And yet it’s not.

Ben Ellis, a Latin teacher for eight years at Christ Presbyterian Academy in Brentwood, died from esophageal cancer about 10 days after students and faculty gathered in his driveway to sing worship songs with him, according to an email the school sent to parents early Friday morning.

“The church should be leading the charge in this area,” said Collins. “We have a biblical mandate to protect children so that they can understand the Gospel without the trauma of child sexual abuse interrupting their growth.”

Thomas and co-founder Tami Resch launched Parakaleo in 2005. To date, the ministry has served more than 300 women in 16 networks, and thousands of women have attended Parakaleo training events and workshops.