God reveals Himself in a 3,000-page book and everyone, regardless of formal education, interacts with Him in the 66 books of the Bible. For that reason alone, our abilities to read, think, and reason are precious skills that must be polished. 

“The new normal is we are facing combat and the daily demands of the war on terror,” Carter said. “We need ministers of the Gospel who are going to stand firm and proclaim Christ in the midst of this very challenging time.” 

As the months went by, the constant demands of disaster relief became more than the Clark family could sustain, but he leaves behind a ministry of immediate relief and a plan for long-term hope.

“There’s a lot more Scripture that builds an environmental ethic than you might imagine, and I don’t think Christians are too aware of it.”

When we filter out the din of competing voices and cultural distractions, there is a simplicity for the preacher/teacher, a simplicity in the message to be preached, a simplicity of the method to preach it, and a simplicity of the church’s mission.

While it is assumed that the leadership and members of this congregation will play a role in observing the elder and providing feedback to the presbytery (“court”) that will make the decision to remove the censure or not, drafters of the overture believe congregation’s role is not clearly laid out in the current language.

If implemented, the recommendation maintains that a super-majority — in most cases, either two-thirds or three-fourths — of the board members of these agencies be ordained officers in the PCA.

In response to last year’s study committee on Women Serving in the Ministry, Grace Presbytery has submitted an overture to the General Assembly requesting that clarity be given to the language in the Book of Church Order that addresses the diaconate.

“It’s a softer approach to dealing with this issue,” explains Ruling Elder John Pickering. “Churches ought to be free to leave. But they ought to do so having made a carefully thought-out decision, not a hasty decision.”

In a trivia contest about PCA history, if asked, “Who was the first member of the PCA?,” many veterans of the denomination would agree it was Paul Gunter Settle.