So what if we are part of a denomination? Does that really matter at all when there are so many problems in the world? What about racial reconciliation? Does being part of the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) help with that?

The answer to that is yes.

This past summer at the PCA General Assembly, the annual national gathering of teaching and ruling elders, we worked on the problem of racial reconciliation on a large level. How?

Two pastors from Mississippi brought forward a personal resolution to the body. In it they confessed that several churches in our denomination were complicit in the problem of racism between black and white that has plagued our country. Their desire was for our denomination to take responsibility on a national level to repent of racism in the past and to commit to grow past it in the future. The full text of the resolution can be found here.

It was a heated discussion. On the one hand, racism didn’t seem to be everyone’s problem. It seemed to be something that affected some churches in the past. There was a resolution somewhat like this one passed a few years back, so some in the assembly thought we had dealt with this problem already. On the other hand, while there was a past resolution we haven’t seen significant change across our denomination. What are we going to do about this?

Two significant things happened.

First, the resolution was passed over to be discussed this summer at GA when it is held in Mobile, Alabama June 20-24. But so many in the assembly wanted something to happen in the body to mark the discussion. Ultimately they signed a petition stating their support of our African American brothers in the denomination that became part of the Assembly minutes. While signing a paper doesn’t seem significant, I can tell you that the long line of men from the front of the room to the back was a sign that something big was happening!

The second thing that happened was a time of prayer. The moderator called for us to take time to invite men to come to the microphone and pray for what was happening in our midst. Many prayers of personal repentance for racism, for mistreatment, for willful ignorance of the problems facing our denomination were given. Tears were shed. It lasted nearly an hour.

We left the Assembly with renewed confidence in the Lord and a renewed sense of mission to face the tension and problem of race in our denomination. There’s much more to say on this topic and there is a lot that has been written since June. I encourage you to read this article or this one.

I ask you to continue to pray and ask the Lord how GCC might be a church that lives out the peace of the cross recognizing that Jesus has broken down the walls of division between Jew and Gentile, black and white, us and them, and he is making one new man out of the two.

In Him,

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