The founders of the PCA viewed ruling elders as a reliable, commonsense bulwark against doctrinal and denominational decline. The founders were not insensible to the fact that teaching elder professors and influential large-church pastors had presided over the liberalization of the old Southern mainline church from whence the PCA came.

The recently-concluded 50th Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly in Memphis, TN was the second-largest ever with (unofficially) 2250 elders in attendance; only the previous year’s assembly was larger with 2385 in attendance. More significantly, this year’s meeting solidified a trend of greater ruling elder (RE) participation in the courts of the PCA.
The parity of the two classes of elder (ruling and teaching) in the PCA is a notable feature of PCA polity. Most committees are structured so that equal numbers for ruling and teaching elders are possible if fully attended. The principle of parity is baked in; the reality of parity has been harder to achieve. Various reasons for this difficulty are given, but most agree that the high cost of attendance and/or the need for a week off of work for REs (most of whom work outside the church for a living) are at least partially to blame. Most teaching elders are paid their salary and expenses to attend both presbytery and GA meetings.
The first PCA General Assembly in 1973 saw more ruling elders than teaching elders (pastors) in its ranks, but a downward trend in lay attendance began after the fourth general assembly. Ruling elders comprising something like 50% of assembly attendance became a thing of the past, and RE participation bottomed out between 2009 and 2018—averaging only 23% of commissioners at those assemblies.
Things began to change in 2018 in Dallas with REs making up 25% of commissioners. Part of the reason for greater RE numbers there may have been the sheer size of the North (everything-is-bigger-in) Texas Presbytery, which hosted the assembly. But the next year in St. Louis there were 25% again, then more than 30% of the commissioners at the last two assemblies (Birmingham and Memphis) were REs. Something is changing; ruling elders are showing up…but why? Here are several possible reasons. 
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Wittingly or unwittingly, this alternative practice creates a new quasi-office or serves as a sort of “ecclesial disobedience” protest against the existing BCO provisions. The effect of not ordaining deacons (if allowed) will, in effect, change the meaning and undermine the authority of the BCO by ignoring or contravening it rather than using the difficult and slow (but honest) constitutional process.

Dozens of congregations of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) communicate to the church and to the world that ordination is not essential to the holding of church office or to bearing the titles thereof. The two-office polity of the PCA is simple and clear; its on-the-ground manifestation is too often confused and confusing.

The confusion is apparent in at least two ways. First, dozens of PCA churches list, portray, or refer to women as deacons (not the sexed, informal term deaconess) or as members of the diaconate (see one church’s explanation above). The problem here is that every reference in the denomination’s Book of Church Order (BCO)[1] to deacons refers to the ordained office,[2] and ordained office in the PCA is limited to men. Furthermore, the diaconate is only mentioned in conjunction with the session of ordained elders. Saying there are unordained members of the diaconate (deacons)  would seem to imply that there could be unordained members of the session (elders), and that could never be. Or could it?
At least one church[3] in the PCA has a female “pastor” (see image below). Or we could also put it like this: One PCA church “has” a female pastor, since you can’t actually have an impossibility — pastors are ordained and no one in the PCA ordains women. But, apparently, a PCA church can assign the title of pastor to someone who is not and cannot be a pastor.

Ordination matters, according to the church in every age and to the PCA’s Form of Government (Part I of the BCO). Focusing on ordination reminds us that the issue is not ultimately about the sex of the officeholder. And ordination is an inescapable factor in Presbyterian polity. In the instance of the female “pastor” cited above, the fact that she is called a “Pastor to Women” is quite beside the point. The use of “Pastor” (whether of youth, music, administration, or outreach) is inappropriate for any unordained person.  Non-ecclesial titles like “Director” or “Coordinator” have typically been used by PCA churches for unordained staff, whether male or female. Curiously, the “Pastor to Women” was referred to as “Director” several years ago, but now is called “Pastor.”
Titles seem to matter even more in these credentialistic days. They obviously matter to the givers of the titles and to those who receive them. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble? But does the actual meaning and definition of the title matter in an ecclesial-denominational context? Postmodern deconstruction questions the meaning of words (and titles are words) but also the meaning and understanding of texts — even of a text so dry and technical as the BCO. Postmodern deconstruction tries to find the meaning behind the glossary definition or might dwell on what a word or phrase should or could mean using critical methods.
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[1] The PCA Book of Church Order may be viewed and downloaded here.
[2] In noting that the PCA office of deacon is limited to men, we do not denigrate other denominations (e.g., the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church [ARP] or the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America [RPCNA]) that explicitly allow and make provisions for females in the office of deacon.
[3] This folder contains links and screenshots concerning the PCA church that gives the title of pastor to a female. This folder gives a small sampling of the range of iterations of diaconates in the PCA. The data is from freely accessible public websites. No attempt has been made to contact the churches for explanations of these practices. It is assumed that the public-facing websites, videos, and documents of local churches express their actual practices and convictions. No offenses are alleged: it is for presbyteries and the PCA General Assembly to determine if churches are deviating from denominational standards of polity.

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The tent image might suggest roominess, but the big tents most of us encounter these days contain circus clowns or maybe, far beyond, the cities and Starbucked suburbs, sweaty revival preachers, but maybe we repeat ourselves. Much better (and more biblical) is the image of a house. Houses have doors that can be opened wide or locked tight, windows that can let in light or air or keep out rain. To the officers of the church have been given the keys of a kingdom whose subjects, for now, reside in the house of and family of God on earth. No one has keys to a tent.

Every approaching annual assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) provokes posturing, positioning, and even reflection. To history appeals are made. To the founders we look. On the examples and words of great men we lean. The 2023 general assembly is no normal one—it is the 50th, of which much will be made. This middle-aged denomination looks to its Memphis meeting, not in crisis but in a state of unease, somewhat rattled after five years of controversy and the recent loss of two significant figures.
As in the late 60s and early 70s, violent cultural winds are buffeting the church. Those winds helped blow the PCA into existence in 1973. Theological liberalism and Neo-orthodoxy in the old southern Presbyterian Church in the U.S. were not the only factors that caused the fathers of the PCA to flee and found. The PCA’s mainline Southern mother had capitulated to culture on ethics, worship, and doctrinal fidelity—her maternal home’s once-solid confessional foundation was undermined, failing for lack of maintenance and attention. The PCUS gold, per Morton Smith’s book title, had become dim. And the late additions to the old southern home were built on sandy soil, not up to confessional code. The house came to have the solidity and wind resistance of a tent. Ironically, the old PCUS tabernacle’s stakes were pulled up for the last time only 10 years later in 1983 (a decade after the PCA’s founding) when Northern and Southern mainline churches joined to form the Presbyterian Church (USA), which now slouches toward oblivion after four decades of steep decline.
All of this makes one wonder why, after 50 years, the aspiration some have for the PCA is for everyone to agree that she is (and always has been) a big tent and that (by design) she never can or should be anything else. “Big Tentism” is not about facts. Its assertions are altogether in the realm of opinion and sentiment. Confessionalists and progressives alike may project their aspirations for the present and the future back upon the real or imagined founders of the PCA. Who they were, should have been, or would become, what they intended or hoped—none of these things are decisive for the PCA at 50. The sure guide for a presbyterian denomination is its constitution, which  for the PCA  consists of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Book of Church Order  (the Form of Government, the Rules of Discipline and the Directory for Worship) “all as adopted by the Church,” and, we might add, as approved of by all officers of the church per their ordination vows. In the constitution we find firmer stuff than that which supports a tent of any size.
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Ministry models that expand widely (or veer wildly) beyond the ordinary means of grace and diaconal care require specialists, coordinators, directors, apparatchiks…and structures. Titles and quasi-offices multiply at least sevenfold. Different conceptions of the church’s mission actually produce different types of churches. This creates difficulties in a connectional denomination where common order is the basis for both fellowship and accountability.

Recent events ought to prompt us to think about presbyterian principles which (because they are biblical) are the best way to provide for the Savior’s sheep in a rightly-ordering church. The ascended Christ gave not only gifts to men in the form of officers, but also a form of church government. (see the PCA BCO Preface)

A “senior pastor” is one elder among many (as Peter, Paul, and the unnamed elders were at the Jerusalem Council, Acts 15:23) and has no extraordinary authority.* Unfortunately, some—usually large—presbyterian churches become de facto staff-led rather than elder-led. The senior pastor becomes the CEO leading (pastoring?) the large and powerful ordained and unordained staff. The modern notion of “vision casting” sometimes seeps in from the wider evangelical megachurch milieu, giving the top man even more supposed authority. It is an open question whether the megachurch model can remain (or ever be) presbyterian in any real sense.
Large churches, with the best of intentions, find simplicity almost impossible to retain. They almost inevitably become service providers and more (not worship) services are added thanks to abundant funding and facilities…which must be used! Churches have complicated organizational charts that resemble those of civil governments, institutions, or corporations. A church with an HR department has probably become too large to be effectively governed on presbyterian principles.
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Some in the PCA are not content to contextualize their presentation, liturgy, or worship — they also feel the need to contextualize polity for an egalitarian cultural mindset that has no patience for the biblical doctrines of office and ordination that are found in our BCO. Their ecclesial innovation can only harm the peace and purity of the church in a connectional church.

The Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) Book of Church Order (BCO) contains no glossary, but maybe it needs one. This is not to fault the BCO’s early-70’s authors — no previous generation of Presbyterians had trouble figuring out what most of the words meant, including those words that denominate the offices and officers of the church. Few presbyters have had the foresight to peer into the ecclesial future and preemptively or prophetically prevent future problems. That being the case, the PCA has often had to tighten up things that have come loose, knock out dents with the brute force of committee-produced tools, or bolt new parts on. Usually, this is done by way of an overture — a request to amend the constitution of which the BCO is a part.
To understand the effect of these as-needed, post-accident, construction-by-committee repairs, modifications, and additions to the BCO, it may be helpful to picture a large early-70s station wagon, not unlike many parked, no doubt, outside of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in 1973 when the PCA was formed — a Family Truckster, if you will (if you get the movie reference). Like the family wagons from the days of leisure suits, the BCO is big; it is traditional, being based on earlier editions of the old Southern Church’s standards; it is clunky, not always aesthetically pleasing, and not good in the curves. Some parts fall off. Others have the tacked-on look of a tasteless trim package or an ill-chosen accessory. Still, the BCO family wagon is reliable, and it has served the PCA family well. But its authors could not foresee a postmodern future where churches would contextualize not just their styles of presentation and worship, but even their polity.
Tightening up the Book of Church Order may take the form of addition or deletion, prescription or proscription. This year one overture requests the addition of 23 words to BCO 7-3 which concerns the misuse of ecclesial titles. The proposed addition is in bold:
No one who holds office in the Church ought to usurp authority therein, or receive official titles of spiritual preeminence, except such as are employed in the Scripture. Furthermore, unordained people should not be referred to as, or given the titles connected to, the ecclesial offices of pastor, elder, or deacon.
There is nothing complicated about the PCA’s polity. There are two offices (elder and deacon) and one of those offices (elder) is divided into two classes (ruling and teaching). That’s it. All officers are ordained. No unordained person is or can be an officer. The overture in question would clarify what the founders of the PCA knew and understood — offices are serious business (being, as the BCO Preface reminds us, gifts from the ascended Christ) and officeholders ought to be properly identified and honored. Offices and officeholders should be called by their proper names and titles, no more and no less. When a name or title is given to one with no right to bear it, the rightful bearers of the name or title are dishonored, and the very integrity and definition of the office in question is degraded.
Pastor, for instance, may mean anything an independent megachurch wants it to mean. Such is not the case in the PCA with its prescribed and well-defined polity. In chapter 4 of the BCO we are told that the officers of a particularized local church are “its teaching and ruling elders and its deacons,” and that “the church Session…consists of its pastor, pastors, its associate pastor(s) and its ruling elders.” In every case, the BCO use of “pastor” refers to an ordained teaching elder. Thus, calling or portraying anyone as a pastor in a PCA church — whether in verbal, written, or online communications — who is not credentialed and ordained as a teaching elder is a violation of our order and a denigration of the office.

Just a day or two after the abovementioned overture appeared on the PCA General Assembly website, someone pointed out to us a PCA church with a “Pastor of Women.” It is possible that an ordained teaching elder (probably an associate or assistant pastor) might be given such a title in a church’s organizational structure, but in this case, the “Pastor of Women” is a woman, so clearly not ordained, not an elder, not — it must be said — a pastor.
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Moral issues of officers generally get more attention than process and polity peccadilloes. But what about when someone says, “We’re not following the rules because a lot of people don’t follow the rules, and we don’t think you’re going to stop us”? What about when the seeming law of what’s allowed begins to damage the fabric of our polity?

In the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), there are but two offices: elder and deacon. All officers in the PCA are ordained; both offices (by definition) are filled by (and only by) ordained persons.
Officers are essential in many kinds of organizations inasmuch as they are legally required or for pragmatic reasons of function and efficiency. However, the officers of the church do not serve merely in order to please the secular government or to increase the effectiveness of the organization — they serve by Divine warrant and command. Thus they are not simply sworn in or signed up; they are ordained. Chapter 17 and other sections of the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) Book of Church Order (BCO) specify that those duly called to office are to be ordained, that ordination is by the laying on of hands, and that only qualified men are candidates for ordination to office.

There is more to becoming an officer than the laying on of hands by the elders — vows are the other essential part of officer-making. All officers vow that they approve of the polity of the PCA, that they will be subject to the courts of the Church (their brethren), and that they will strive for the purity, peace, unity, and edification of the church as a whole, which is to say the wider (not just local) Church. Therefore, these vows seem to require a scrupulous adherence to the rules, terms, and processes described in the PCA’s BCO, assuming that the written, stated law of the Church is the law of the Church. Such adherence is uncontroversially essential to the purity, peace, and unity of the Church, to say nothing of trust and true harmony among co-laborers in gospel ministry. Rule benders in organizations often joke that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission when supposed exigency “requires” non-compliance. But if forgiveness is required (due to actual offense), should not repentance (and new obedience) also be required, especially when that organization is a church with agreed-upon standards (the written law code of the church)?

But the law of what’s allowed is a thing. We all know that the posted speed limits on state and federal highways are honored more in breach than by strict obedience. Everyone knows what the “real” speed limit is, at least until flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror suggest otherwise and bring the driver back to the reality of the written law and the posted speed limit. Highway patrolmen are needed to more or less keep order on our roadways. In the church, there are no police per se. In fact, even Presbyterian churches pretty much run on an honor system. The review and control of presbyteries via review of records is mostly review, advise, and suggest, if that. Minor issues are often covered in love. Much patience is shown in more serious offenses. Major offenses are usually dealt with, but slowly, with much empathy, and with great deference to lower courts.
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We can only speculate as to how he [Machen] might view the de facto revisions of the PCA’s confession and catechisms due to the allowances of “good faith subscription.” One thing is for sure—despite the challenges of the day, PCA confessionalists stand on much firmer ground and have far better prospects than did Machen in the first three and half decades of the 20th century.

J. Gresham Machen was doomed from the start in the Northern church. A virus was inserted into the PCUSA’S denominational source code going back to the mid-late 19th century at least. Add to the doctrinal defects the denomination’s stranglehold on the property of local congregations and you have an inevitable outcome…unless the bad guys leave and take the hit. And how often does this happen? The inertia and self-interest of large organizations usually win, especially when the organization is lavishly funded.
The Charles Augustus Briggs case was the little yellow bird in the mainline presbyterian coal mine. Though Briggs, a minister, professor, and opponent of the verbal inspiration of scripture, was defrocked in 1893, his very presence was a warning. But Briggs* was not just a doctrinal heretic—”Inerrancy is a ghost of modern evangelicalism to frighten children.”—he was also an opponent of that bulwark against error, confessionalism.

Briggs sounded very up-to-date when he “claimed that the contemporary supporters of the Confession had actually distorted the spirit of its teaching. ‘Modern Presbyterianism,’ he charged, ‘had departed from the Westminster Standards’ and a ‘false orthodoxy had obtruded itself’ in its place. That false teaching—what he labeled ‘orthodoxism’—was coming from Princeton Seminary, principally in the defense of biblical authority championed by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield.”
Briggs was ahead of the game when it comes to a sort of beautiful orthodoxy:
Orthodoxism assumes to know the truth and is unwilling to learn; it is haughty and arrogant, assuming the divine prerogatives of infallibility and inerrancy; it hates the truth that is unfamiliar to it, and prosecutes it to the uttermost. But (ed. note: beautiful?) orthodoxy loves the truth. It is ever anxious to learn, for it knows how greatly the truth of God transcends human knowledge…. It is meek, lowly, and reverent. It is full of charity and love. It does not recognize an infallible pope; it does not bow to an infallible theologian.
The above was quoted by Hart and Muether. Let us see more of what they wrote about this particular turning point in Presbyterian history. Ask yourself, O PCA presbyter, if anything sounds familiar:
Although critical of the alleged innovations from Princeton Seminary, Union Seminary’s Old School rival, Briggs did not advocate merely removing a supposed Princetonian gloss from the Westminster Confession. Presbyterians, he argued, must also acknowledge the inadequacies and errors of the Confession. Since progress was of the essence of genuine Presbyterianism, the Confession itself encouraged its adjustment “to the higher knowledge of our times and the still higher knowledge that the coming period of progress in theology will give us.” Failure to take this step would be to retreat to the errors of Rome and to abandon the very principles of the Reformation.
Briggs was tapping into a growing consensus in the church, which had begun to form no later than the reunion of 1869, that the harder Calvinistic edges of the Confession needed to be softened. In the words of Benjamin J. Lake, “Some of the time-honored rigidity in the Westminster Confession seemed obsolete to many Presbyterians.” Typically, Presbyterian rigidity was spelled p-r-e-d-e-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n.
At the same time, former Old Schoolers feared the rise of “broad churchism” and anticonfessionalism. But if Briggs’s proposals outraged conservatives, the spirit and the terms of the 1869 reunion discouraged efforts to discipline him. (bolding mine)
That reunion was of the previously divided stick-in-the-mud Old Schoolers and go-go, revivalist New Schoolers. The question must be asked: Are the divides in the PCA of today just a repeat (or rhyming soundalike) of the Old School-New School contradictions?
Turning back to Machen, let us notice that “the harder Calvinistic edges of the Confession (which) needed to be softened” were in fact softened to encourage and pave the way for the PCUSA’s absorption of much of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, a sort of revivalist 4-point Calvinist mutant body. In 1903, revisions of a few sections, two added chapters, and a qualifying “declaratory statement” sucked the Calvinistic life out of the Westminster Confession—at least the Northern church’s version. Thus by 1920s, Machen and his allies were working with a confession already diluted and de-fanged. The writing was on the wall.

The PCA and OPC are working with a restored WCF, thanks largely to Machen, who “was not as favorable (as Warfield), describing the 1903 revisions as ‘compromising amendments,’ ‘highly objectionable,’ a ‘calamity,’ and ‘a very serious lowering of the flag’ (Presbyterian Guardian, Nov. 28, 1936, pp. 69-70).”
Machen died soon after penning these words, of course. We can only speculate as to how he might view the de facto revisions of the PCA’s confession and catechisms due to the allowances of “good faith subscription.” One thing is for sure—despite the challenges of the day, PCA confessionalists stand on much firmer ground and have far better prospects than did Machen in the first three and half decades of the 20th century. Let us learn…and live.
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. This article is used with permission.
*Briggs became an Episcopalian
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Whether the ordination of women to the offices of deacon, then ruling elder was inevitable and just a symptom of the slide or whether it actually made the slope all the more slippery…well, that’s a subject of debate. Women pastors in the PCUSA did not gain approval until 1956, two decades after Machen’s untimely death. It seems that it took so long for women to climb into pulpits, considering the movement for full women’s equality began in 1930.

Ordained female deacons in the Northern church resulted largely from the receiving into the PCUSA in 1905-1906 of the greater part of the old born-in-revival Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which already had female deacons. Sometime between 1905 or 1906 and 1922 the PCUSA went from having informal deaconesses or inherited (grandmothered in?) Cumberland lady deacons to the real, official thing. Here’s the first mention of official lady deacons in a copy of the PCUSA constitution to which we have access (1922):

Section II is not a triumph of the English language. *By comparison, the PCA Book of Church Order is much more expansive on offices and the qualifications of officers.) To make things even less clear, we have a stray reference to deaconesses a page or two later:

It’s not entirely clear whether this refers to a more informal, unordained, locally-variable quasi-office or to the fairly new office of female deacon. Maybe it’s the former…a thing that had been around for a while. If so, the PCUSA of the 1920s was much like the PCA of the 2020s, which seems to have a de facto “office” of deaconess or female deacon, though unordained. (More to come on the PCA situation in a future article.) The PCUSA constitution was frustratingly short on definitions. Deacons (whether of the XY or XX type) seem not to have been a big deal in the Northern church. They were not for Machen…as far as we know. I considered why this might be about a year ago in the NTJ:
Machen vs. Women – A War He Never Fought
To anyone familiar with J. Gresham Machen’s biography the words, “Machen and women” will bring two facts to mind: that Machen never married and that he had a particularly intimate relationship with his mother. Much of what we know about Machen comes from the voluminous trove of letters to his mother. His views on segregation (shared in an early letter or two) have gotten him in particular trouble in the era of Wokeness. And in the era of Revoice there is new, if unfounded, speculation about his bachelorhood. And there is ongoing disagreement about the nature of his one (and only?) alleged romance with a Unitarian lady.
The more ecclesial-minded Machenite might well have another question: Where did Machen stand on the issues of women, office, and ordination in presbyterian churches, particularly his own? I, at least, have thought a lot about this murky issue. No biographers have cited comments from Machen on these issues, and if such comments existed, they would loom large in women’s ordination debates that bubble up from time to time in conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Some consider women’s ordination a sort of canary in the confessional presbyterian coal mine: any talk of approving it being viewed as an indicator of faltering biblical fidelity or as symptoms of cultural compromise.
History may be our only helper in discerning Machen’s views, so here’s some history. The northern Presbyterian Church in the USA (in which Machen labored until 1936) first ordained women as deacons, serving equally with men, in 1923, though there may have been a less-formal deaconess role previously allowed or maintained, somewhat like many PCA churches have today. Machen’s opinion on admitting women to the ordained officeriate is unknown. Maybe he was indifferent. Maybe he shared the views of his Princeton colleague, the great B.B. Warfield, who favored some sort of “deaconing women,” to use a Tim Keller term….
…By 1930 when women ruling elders were first ordained, Machen was fighting for his own ecclesial life, having become persona non grata with PCUSA elites, and was fighting for the life his newly-established seminary, having resigned from Princeton after nearly 25 years of association with the northern church’s flagship theological school.

Machen was a busy man. Maybe he never married for that reason alone, He may also have lacked the time or energy to address the women-as-officers issue. We’ll never know.
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Well, in the name of unity and progress, presbyters are often exhorted to empathy and imagination…maybe we should coin a new term: empathigination. Empathy is good. Putting oneself in the trendy, white-soled brown leather casual shoes of another can be helpful. For the last couple of decades, it seems empathigination in the PCA is primarily enjoined upon the cons (the conservatives and confessionalists).

The season is upon us. Presbyteries meet with an eye toward nominations, conflagrations, overtures, do-overtures, and assemblies general. Elders take stock and make reservations. Denominational issues become more real than they seemed in the bleak midwinter.
The annual-assembling Presbyterian Church in America, turning 50 and preparing to celebrate (or conflagrate?) in Memphis this June, is big, broad, and still orthodox in an evangelical sort of way. If this born-in-Birmingham denomination were a house, a cable TV remodeling show host might say she has good bones and a serviceable foundation. She grew like Topsy for a while, and some of the additions and improvements turned out a little weird—the proportions and paint scheme are messy. But messy is good, right? Still, some wonder if everything was really done to code, if some of the previous subcontractors weren’t a little shady.
Well, in the name of unity and progress, presbyters are often exhorted to empathy and imagination…maybe we should coin a new term: empathigination. Empathy is good. Putting oneself in the trendy, white-soled brown leather casual shoes of another can be helpful. For the last couple of decades, it seems empathigination in the PCA is primarily enjoined upon the cons (the conservatives and confessionalists).
In the interest of empathizing with the cons (for those who find this difficult), I offer as a service these words from a small-church pastor who ministers in the Southeast:
“I think I understand the frustration {two very online pastors} and most progressives feel. They are in a church world they don’t really want to be in. They believe many things the PCA believes, but they want to have practices that are simply not part of the ecclesiastical world they belong to. They stay constantly frustrated with their denomination because it is fundamentally something they aren’t. They want revivals, normative principle of worship, and the ability to innovate as they think appropriate. They want presbytery to be a network, more than a presbytery. They want the GA to be more national conference, less church court. Now, they have had successes, made changes, and have gotten a lot of what they want. But in the end, there are too many people committed to the denomination being what it is…this holds them back. And they do not want to be held back at all. They want full freedom and are resentful of any who don’t want the same, or who try and stop them from doing what they want.”
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All is not well in the way worship is conducted in the PCA. Even as observance of the Lord’s Supper becomes more frequent in our churches, it seems that errors in its conduct multiply. These include the bizarre and biblically-unfounded practice of intinction (where the bread is dipped in wine and the two actions of the supper become confused), distribution of elements by unordained persons and even children, and so-called “young child communion” where some churches regularly admit children as young as four years old to the table. 
The state of worship in the Presbyterian Church in America is arguably better than it has ever been, at least as far as liturgy goes. More churches now use recognizably Reformed liturgies than at any point in the denomination’s history. These are liturgies that include the biblical elements of worship—they are not just the standard evangelical format of  “30 minutes of singing/30 minutes of preaching.” What may be lacking though are the hard-to-define (but essential) qualities of reverence and awe. What may be trending is leadership of worship that does not comport with or support presbyterian polity. And what may be chipping away at the foundations of proper worship are errant and novel practices, mostly regarding the Lord’s Supper.
Granted, most PCA churches employ liturgies that have more in common with those of the Continent rather than those of the holy presbyterian isle, Scotland. A standard PCA liturgy looks something like this, with minor variations in order and terminology:
Call to worshipHymn or psalmInvocationLord’s PrayerConfession of sinDeclaration/assurance of pardonConfession of faithSinging of the doxologyPrayer and offeringPastoral prayerScripture readingHymn or psalmScripture readingSermon (with prayer before and after)Lord’s Supper (weekly or monthly, bookended by additional prayers)Closing hymn or psalmBenediction
This is scripturally-regulated worship made up of biblical elements. The dialogical pattern of God speaking by his Word and his people responding in prayer, praise, and confession is obvious. There are many prayers and lots of scripture. Rearrange the order, change a term or two, and you have a liturgy that is common not only to most PCA churches, but also to most of the confessional churches affiliated with the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) and, indeed, to most conservative Reformed churches the world over for the last five centuries. But otherwise-solid liturgies may be undermined by things done, left undone, or done improperly—additions, omissions, and errors.
What are some examples of tangible and intangible things which have been added to liturgies, to the detriment of simple, biblical, Spirit-and-truth Reformed worship? We would propose the following:
First, an overly horizontal, man-centered ethos may be reflected in informal or casual approaches to the service, which could include announcements or presentations that break up the dialogical-biblical flow and tone of the service. These might focus on service opportunities or might amount to promotional pitches complete with video presentations or distribution of materials. Fellowship times in the middle of the service (sometimes called “passing of the peace” or even “halftime.”) might succeed in establishing a familiar or homey feel even as they distract from the holy purpose of worship. Children’s activities or the departure of children from the service at some point may also prove disruptive. Other unwelcome additions include showy musical performances, loud or complex musical accompaniment or leadership (which may also dominate visually as a central focus),  or other inappropriate visual elements. Too often, we also find whole seasons imported to the simple, ordinary,  and biblical Reformed tradition, like Lent and Holy Week. Somewhat related are the eclectic additions of the Anglican-attracted, which includes complicated and variable clerical garb and vestments, crossings, bowing at prescribed times, or turning to face a cross, bible, or procession. Finally (and possibly most destructive) we may bring “the warfare of the world…into the house of God,” as J. Gresham Machen lamented in the 1920s. In his day the imported social and political issues included “things that divide nation from nation and race from race…human pride…the passions of war.” Little has changed in the last 100 years since Machen published Christianity and Liberalism. The battle for spiritual worship continues.
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