Ironically, one area where the court was divided was the issue of whether to remove the standing committee called “Understanding the Times.” Historically, this committee has been used as a way for the Covenanters to call the church and nation to repentance and to provide prayerful insight into what the church would fast over, covenant over, and seek the face of Christ over…The court voted 62 to 61 to retain the Understanding the Times Committee

Debate of the issue at the assembly acknowledged that the EPC does not take political positions but does issue statements related to theological and Biblical matters. Because life, religious liberty and the free exercise of the conscience are regarded as issues of significant importance, commissioners agreed overwhelmingly to issue the statement.

Rev. Dave Long (Lafayette, IN) was nominated as moderator. Rev. Long has a track record of church planting as well as sending men into the ministry. The vote was unanimous! Following the election, his congregation presented him with a very large bouquet…of Tootsie Pops!

Currently, two of the EPC presbyteries are majority complementarian, which means they do not ordain women to the office of teaching elder. And in Mid-America "a number of presbyters have expressed the view that churches with women ruling elders should not be received into the presbytery."

Given that there are 1,466 churches in the PCA, and 4,256 TEs, the theoretical attendance at GA this year was a minimum of 7,188. Actual attendance, however, was 797 TEs and 278 REs

Also on Friday, Synod delegates approved four recommendations to move toward a biennial General Synod, proposing odd-numbered years would feature a gathering of congregational leaders to focus on equipping the RCA’s congregations

Five years ago, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America took issue with an action of Northern California Presbytery and Philadelphia Presbytery in a matter related to deaconesses. The result was two years of debate about whether or not we should study the issue, and the PCA said that it did not want to do so.

Muslim Idiom Translations have translated these terms with such substitutes as "representative" and "guardian." This action will give guidance to churches supporting translation work, a resource to our mission agency, and place pressure on translation agencies to hold to biblical standards for translation.

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) voted unanimously to elect the Rev. Jeffrey Jeremiah to a third term as its stated clerk. In his remarks to the assembly, meeting this week at First Presbyterian Church, Baton Rouge, Jeremiah said that five years ago (2007) the EPC had 182 churches. Today, that number has literally doubled to 364.

The report cites that in some cases the church has subjected aspiring female ministers to more scrutiny than male candidates, and ordination has been delayed in other cases because some church leaders opposed to women in ministry have refused to attend examination meetings.