I certainly know that not all elders are qualified or godly. Vote out bad, unqualified elders. After reading this book and its sexist claims against godly elders, re-read the qualifications for elders and see if any of those are reflected in the disdain elders are treated with in Alongside Care. What is the denomination thinking? Are we wiser than God? More loving than he is? Do we love women better than God does? This book seems to think so.

A Review of the PCA’s Alongside Care, (Lawrenceville, Georgia: PCA Committee on Discipleship Ministries, 2024, $14.99).
Early in my marriage about 45 years ago, my husband and I were in a large liberalizing church where one of his responsibilities was to teach the Bible moderators—the Bible teachers for the many women’s circles which that church had. As often happens, bad teaching seems to seep in through materials marketed for women. As the PCUS wandered further from Scripture, their women’s studies were leading the way in liberalism. Having grown up in the Catholic church, I’d seen that shift but didn’t quite understand it in light of Presbyterianism. My husband gave me a great task of going through the denomination’s women’s studies with a fine-toothed comb and more importantly, with Scripture opened to each and every passage. This long-ago skill came in handy with Alongside Care. To riff on Abigail Shrier’s new title, there is much bad therapy here.
The recent PCA book, Alongside Care, is yet another subtle attempt to show why God probably wasn’t having his best day ever when he gave us the blueprint for how his church is to be governed and nurtured. Alongside Care pays lip service, almost as if AI-generated, to the idea that, yes, God placed ordained men to be elders and to lead his church—it’s just that they aren’t constituted to do it very well. Page after page follows with underminings of God’s order, advocating a handy replacement division of elite women who will handle the really vital things for the Session, since elders are so busy traveling and working and commuting and having families and basically becoming a hindrance to the church.
Further, along with its degrading of elders, Alongside Care suffers from its dueling tendencies to both try to infantilize some women and simultaneously turn the influencers, the leaders, into the female Illuminati they think the church needs.
The qualifications for elders are quite clear and seldom, if ever, referenced in this book. They are to be: above reproach, husband of one wife, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, gentle, a good manager of his own family, and a lover of good. An elder is not to be a drunkard, or violent, or quarrelsome, or a lover of money, or quick-tempered.
Listen, first, to how qualified ordained elders are described in Alongside Care and how I hear those with my emphases, comments, and questions added at points.

“The burden of oversight can be heavy, and many ordained leaders feel inadequate to address some issues involving women. . . . For some, the nuanced emotional issues seem overwhelming. For others, the ability to communicate carefully amidst unequal power dynamics is particularly difficult.” (p. 45)

Yes, oversight of the flock of God is demanding work for sure. Question: Is that not exactly the work that elders are called to do?

“Elders are God’s ordained shepherds to care for his people. Part of their task is to recognize how God provides “necessary allies” among the women of the congregation to help them in their shepherding responsibilities.” (p. 48)

Question: When was this task assigned to elders? Don’t most of the elders have wives to help them? Shouldn’t all women be allies in their churches?

“Wise elders recognize the relational acumen of women and seek help to present biblical instruction in a way that nurtures relational connection and trust.” (p. 49)

Titus 1:9 says the elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may give instruction in sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it.  Question: Why do elders now need female Illuminati to show them how they are allowed to teach or nurture? Why do they suddenly need help instructing? That is their actual calling.

“The elder can work with a female caregiver to tailor a biblical message that accurately addresses the need.” (p. 50)

Hmmm, question: Why is that God’s word needs to be “tailored” for women? Do we have a different gospel for different genders? And if an elder needs a female caregiver, shouldn’t she be his wife? (See recent scandals where pastors and female caregivers have been arrested for, ahem, park passion).  

In many congregations the ordained leadership is comprised of “men who struggle to fulfill the responsibilities of businessman, father, and elder.” “Frequent travel and even more frequent meetings hinder an elder from cultivating deep relationships with members of the congregation.” (p. 50)

Isn’t it presupposed that one qualified to be an elder has a family and a job? Actually, elders do have deep relationships. In a recent ten-day period in our church, here are things—without even consulting this manual—that I saw elders do: worked in nursery, helped in the kitchen, taught the youth group, drove that same youth group to the airport at 5:30 AM, celebrated at graduation parties, taught in childrens’ ministry, hosted dinners in their homes, visited the hospital, taught Sunday School, met visitors, attended prayer meetings, took meals to families in need, washed dishes after a funeral, and had lunch for their shepherding groups after church—and there’s more that I don’t even see. Hardly, the insensitive, non-relational elders caricatured in this book.

“Limited opportunities for significant conversation affect the quality of pastoral care and oversight.” (p. 50)

Do women have unlimited opportunities for significant conversations, and can I be in that group? How do fewer words, if true, restrict pastoral care?

“When ordained leaders make a decision, they often prefer to focus more on proclaiming than persuading.” (p. 51)

Question: Do people not understand decisions or do they not like them? There’s a difference.

“Rather than get the word out and solve problems when they arise, elders should consult with [ed., Wait for it] tried and trusted leaders who can help shape communication.” (p. 51)

Question: Why aren’t elders considered tried and trusted leaders? Where in Scripture or creed are elders told to run everything by women consultants?
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Now listen to how ordinary, unordained women just like me are described. Spoiler alert: we are totally amazing, some might say superior!!

Women are “especially equipped” to help other women live out their callings as women. “We know what it is like to be a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister. We understand the unique challenges, longings, and heart issues women bear.” “The caregiver listens to the woman’s heart.” (p. 16)

First, you don’t have to understand someone’s inner thoughts to love them. Understanding is never a prerequisite for loving any person. If it were, babies would be abandoned at birth; toddlers would spend their lives watching Bluey; there would be no marriages nor friendships. Even the Apostle Paul admits that he doesn’t understand why he acts as he does (Rom. 7). Jeremiah 17:9 says “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it?” I guess the Illuminati Care givers can, if the book is to be believed. Where are normal friendships?

Alongside Care is designed “to serve the Session, helping them in their calling to shepherd God’s people.” “No man understands experientially how it feels to be a wife, to have a menstrual cycle, to have a baby, or to go through menopause.” (p. 17)

What a ridiculous sentence! Women actually discuss menstrual cycles and menopause very little. Could anything be less fascinating? Well, watching paint dry, maybe. Now, the hidden feminism of these ideas is showing itself. Since no man knows “experientially” about menstrual cycles, childbirth, or menopause, clearly, we incredible ladies probably cannot even be shepherded by men. Should we lesbianize the church to be better understood?

Alongside Care is a “resource to the ordained elders in the church.” (p. 19)

Why didn’t God himself even hint about this fabulous resource?

“Alongside Care is not biblical counseling.” (p. 18) “A caregiver provides biblical counseling.” (p. 21)

Choose one, either one, which is it?!

 “If the woman feels she is in crisis, she is.” (p. 23)

Honestly, has there been a more laughable sentence? Does this mean: If a girl feels she is a boy, she is? If a toddler feels she is a unicorn, she is? If a wife feels she needs a side-hustle boyfriend, she does? For the record, most women would not fall for the line “If the woman feels she is in crisis, she is.” Discernment is a quite useful gift. Alongside Care would surely have benefitted from some.
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If ultimate authority is given to our senses, then doubts about God’s goodness will abound. However, if our confidence in God’s goodness depends primarily on His own special self-revelation in Scripture, then the here and now finds its context within the framework of the cross and the triumphant return of Christ. Counselors act as wise guides when they lead their counselees to greater awareness of their location in the history of redemption. By this awareness, counselors and counselees direct their life responses as praise for God’s everlasting goodness and His steadfast love—even when it doesn’t make it to our experiential senses.

If you live long enough, you will suffer. If you counsel long enough, you will hear some stories of unimaginable suffering. Our awareness of the fallenness of the order in which we live should, in theory, prevent our shock when listening to our counselee’s pains. Often, that is not the case. Some stories are just jaw-dropping.
Some circumstances remind us of the dreadful days narrated at the end of the book of Judges. “There was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). The atrocities multiplied as the evil of men grew more and more evident, to the point that even reading a narrative like that of the Levite and concubine makes us cringe (see Judg. 19).
But then, we find ourselves cringing once again in the counseling chair. We hear stories about child sexual abuse, spiritual authoritarianism, spousal serial betrayals, and so many other evils that are hard to believe. And yet, as counselors, we are just “reading” the story. In front of us sits a brother or sister who is experiencing those hardships, and each blow of pain is a challenge to their faith: “Where is your good God?”
When goodness doesn’t make sense (or, to our senses), the biblical counselor is responsible for reminding the afflicted counselee of the rest of the story. To be biblical in our counseling, we must help the counselee contextualize his human experience, no matter how challenging they are, within frames of redemptive history. This contextualization entails at least three scenes: 1) the counselee’s present suffering, 2) Christ’s redemptive suffering, and 3) the promised end of suffering with the return of the King.
First Scene—Sensed Evil
The problem of evil hurts the most at the experiential level. Yes, theodicy involves various logical challenges for academics to discuss. The difficulty of those theoretical challenges does not compare, however, to what is experienced by those going through seasons of intense pain and suffering. For the afflicted, circumstances seem to shout moment after moment in accusation, “Where is your God?” (Ps. 42:3, 10).
The wise counselor will not use that truth from Romans 8:28 glibly or too quickly. Yes, we do believe that God is working all things for those who love Him.
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The church needs a growing number guardians of the gospel who, strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, recognise false teaching and teach the truth empowered by grace to one another.  Is that you?  Not a heresy hunter, but a gospel of grace teacher.  Taught so that you can teach others in whatever context that is.

Paul’s second call that flows from the first, is to multiply guardians of the gospel. Those who know grace and strengthened by grace contend for and teach the gospel.
It’s not good to be alone.  That’s a universal truth of the human condition, it’s the way God has made us.  It’s true for Adam in the garden and it’s true for us today.  But it’s also true for us in serving Jesus in the church. It’s true for ministers and for ministry leaders. A sense of loneliness in ministry, of bearing the burden and responsibility alone is incredibly isolating and weighty.
Whose job is it to guard the gospel?  Be honest, what’s your first answer?  We live in an age of professionalism, where we pay people to do jobs, take responsibilities, so we don’t have to.  And so in many churches the answer, not in words but in reality, would be it’s the pastor’s job to guard the gospel.  Or maybe the elders job.  And there is some truth in that.  They do have a particular responsibility to do that.  But it’s not solely their responsibility.
In 2 Timothy 2v8 Paul tells Timothy that he must train up others who will teach others.  Timothy needs to train up guardians of the gospel there in Ephesus, how?
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