This piece isn’t about Johnson. It isn’t about Revoice. Or even, in some ways, about the challenges facing the PCA. It is really about our call, as lay members in the PCA, to faithfully exercise our God-given, Book of Church Order confirmed responsibilities to assist our denomination in its submission to God’s authority as given to us in Holy Scripture. To that end, I offer some questions toward the end of this piece that we as members can discuss with our elders, candidates for elders, and other members so that we can better understand their beliefs about important issues facing the church today.

During the eight years that Barack Obama was president, friends and colleagues would often complain about various policies or actions of his administration. While I was usually sympathetic with their angst, I would often respond, “Well, we have no one to blame but ourselves. After all, we (the American people) elected him.”

I had a similar response when watching an openly gay PCA pastor speak at at our recent General Assembly–and receive applause from many elders in attendance. While I didn’t personally vote to call him–just as my complaining friends and colleagues didn’t vote to elect President Obama, the truth is that Greg Johnson and most of those who support his position on Revoice and his ordination as a teaching elder wouldn’t have been at General Assembly as elders in our denomination unless we, members of the PCA, had voted to call them.

Though I have lead with him, this piece isn’t about Johnson. It isn’t about Revoice. Or even, in some ways, about the challenges facing the PCA. It is really about our call, as lay members in the PCA, to faithfully exercise our God-given, Book of Church Order confirmed responsibilities to assist our denomination in its submission to God’s authority as given to us in Holy Scripture. To that end, I offer some questions toward the end of this piece that we as members can discuss with our elders, candidates for elders, and other members so that we can better understand their beliefs about important issues facing the church today.

I offer these questions because whether one supports, opposes, or is lukewarm on Revoice and other issues of debate in our denomination, all of us as PCA members have work to do as part of our church polity. And as a member of a local church, our work is not at the GA or, for the most part, even the denominational level, it is at home in our congregations. Through our God-designed polity, which we believe to be “essential to the perfection of the church,” members have the awesome responsibility to call (and select, in the case of the senior pastor) all the elders who rule over us and guide our church.

As a reminder of what this means, here are the vows that we, as “sinners in the sight of God” who “rest upon [Christ] alone for salvation,” take when we agree to receive a minister whom we have called:

• Do you, the people of this congregation, continue to profess your readiness to receive ______________, whom you have called to be your pastor?
• Do you promise to receive the word of truth from his mouth with meekness and love, and to submit to him in the due exercise of discipline?
• Do you promise to encourage him in his labors, and to assist his endeavors for your instruction and spiritual edification?
• Do you engage to continue to him while he is your pastor that competent worldly maintenance which you have promised, and to furnish him with whatever you may see needful for the honor of religion and for his comfort among you?

And here is our vow when we receive a ruling elder (or deacon):

• Do you, the members of this church, acknowledge and receive this brother as a ruling elder (or deacon), and do you promise to yield him all that honor, encouragement and obedience in the Lord to which his office, according to the Word of God and the Constitution of this Church, entitles him?

I’ll round this off with the last two vows we take when we become members:

• Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?
• Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promise to study its purity and peace?

The first thing that stands out to me from these vows is that we are to submit to, honor, and encourage the men we call as elders with meekness and love, echoing 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13: “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”

In addition, as we seek to fulfill these vows, especially the vows to “support the Church in its worship and work,” “study its peace and purity,” and “encourage him in his labors,” I suggest we are also responsible for establishing to the best of our ability that the “word of truth” is being spoken from the mouth of a man before we call him to be an elder–our session serves as guidance on this, but we are to provide the final determination. It would not be encouraging to call a man to something he cannot do well. The BCO (see BCO 24-7) also makes clear our calling to continue to play a role in this, along with the courts of the church, after a man has been called and ordained as an elder. Iron sharpening iron applies to all relationships in the church–though let’s be attentive to that log in our eye along the way.

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