"Yeah, He's Somewhere Else Now."

That was the slight echo I wanted, might still get.

One way, or the other, I will depart the PCA this Saturday.

I have been a PCA Teaching Elder for 24 years in Eastern Carolina Presbytery. I was their first RUF Campus Minister. I had big dreams for RUF in Eastern North Carolina: NCSU, UNC, Central, Duke, ECU, Wilmington, Meredith. With the star:t of RUF International at NCSU this fall, my prayer list from 2002 is finished. I have sought to preach Christ with all the punch of a B- preacher. I accomplished a few valuable things, have known some fine men and been well overseen by my Presbytery. He does not deal with us according to our sins (Psalm 103).

Part of the delight in serving as a RUF Campus Minister was the esprit de corps, filled to the brim twice a year with a week together for training. Throughout those years I was both arrogant, and burdened with conundrum in family affliction. Those men helped me continue, and tried to help me grow. Like men who have come and gone in my Presbytery, their progress and usefulness in the gospel ministry has been buoying and instructive to me. Terry Traylor, Bebo Elkin, John Stone, Dave Bowen, and Tom Becker each did excellently by me-- and not just by the examples from which many have benefited.

My wife's decades long chronic and rising affliction with OCD prompted me to pass on a second dream-to-me call with MTW (yes, there is a made-for-T.V. movie plot in there, written by Tim Burton). My disconsolate reaction provoked me in 2013 to request a ruling from Presbytery: should I demit without censure. Presbytery's committee spent a year, Dave Bowen walked me through their recommendation per BCO and evidence, and Presbytery told me to sit tight until God put me back in the game. Part of why they could do that was their attentive role in our family's hardship over the previous years.

Even when I was fired from RUF by Presbytery-- I always had the pleasure of bragging on how the court handled my business. I even have had the slow gift of realizing that they were right and I was wrong. Lest brevity invite knowing-commentary-between-friends (like a General Assembly video presentation): yes, there are more recent disappointments-- some acute. The Lord Jesus is right about those things too. I'm thankful for my years in the PCA.

Really, It's Not You, It's Me.

I'm departing because, as they say, my views have changed. Let's be clear: I'm not concerned with being better than the PCA, just better than the punk I know best. It is not about becoming smarter, or growing or evolving. I'm repenting. I have regret about how with a clear conscience and upholding industry standards I harmed the cause of Christ.

I've changed my views and my practice because I am ashamed of the old ones and thankful for older ones. Many of my PCA fathers and brothers were right; your example improved me. If ever I might do the same, it would delight me.

I can't faithfully continue sitting on my hands; and I don't think I can be helpful for reform in the PCA. I don't have the resources to be useful with my "differing perspective." When Paul instructs us to demonstrate the reasonableness that comes from joy in Christ, he instructs us to simultaneously chew his ear off about everything that stirs our worry and dissatisfaction. Many things which you cannot reasonably say, your father wants you to pray (Phil. 4).

With joy and concern, I will go on praying for the PCA, particularly the congregations in my neck of the woods. If ya'll want to hear the crazy things I think, you can invite me and prove it by paying the bill. Or, come to my house and bring the beer. Wherever we are, it's before the same throne with the same cloud of witnesses. Christ is seated there. Those folks are not discouraged. Now, they are better than both the stories we still tell about them, and better than we are at this point in the tale.

I have sought to depart without contention over my views and practice. I haven't advocated for them in the PCA. I haven't advertised or argued for them-- even in this last word. Some have suggested that the Overture on Jesus Calling, which I audaciously sent up to GA suspended on my name alone, is exactly such advocacy: an idiosyncratic demand that the PCA become like some other Reformed denomination. As far as I know, it's the first time that the Overtures Committee has vindicated heeding the concerns of a lone idiot. It took almost 100 of them.

For me, it was repentance for cynical inaction a decade previous. For the PCA, my overture squarely addressed the book as a violation of the Second Commandment, per the Westminster Larger Catechism. GA's Overture Committee entirely removed any such consideration. 100 PCA elders in a room didn't think that was legit. My final piece of public advocacy did not mention idolatry at all. Yes, I think I'm correct, but how does one speak reasonably? I am an outlier, politely headed out. Tell the stories after I leave, but they are not stories about the Overture Committee or the GA's action pertaining to Jesus Calling.

One Way or The Other

Yes, we do tell stories. Often they are more interesting, if our assumptions are better established than our familiarity with the events. If I can hold your interest, I will try to make this story less interesting. Or, just pass on this as tl/dr, and remember you are ignorant about whatever happened here. It really shouldn't be that interesting.

Two weeks ago, my Presbytery's shepherding committee docketed for this Saturday's Stated Meeting a motion to transfer my credentials to the Presbytery of the Alleghenies (RPCNA). It is not the counsel I initially received from our parliamentarian. I did not request this, but it fits my desire well and matches my recent communications to Presbytery. Nothing to see.

Two days ago I received an email from ByFaith, in preparation for an article they are writing on the Jesus Calling Overture. Somehow they knew of my plan to depart the PCA-- which I have not advertised at all-- and thought a couple of paragraphs about it would be of interest to their readership. I'm the fourth generation of a journalism dynasty, and I've never been desperate enough to consider the trade. It's journalism; it's fine; I sent them a paragraph. I also bcc'ed several PCA folks whom I would want to hear that news from me rather than second hand. But, now, it's a story in the land of assumptions. It shouldn't be interesting.

Two minutes (no journalistic license involved) after I sent my reply to ByFaith's email, I received an email from another member of my Presbytery (actually a member of the Shepherding committee). He informed me of his plan to bring a substitute motion to note the irregularity and remove my name from the roll of Eastern Carolina Presbytery per BCO 38-3a. I'm departing one way or the other-- and no skulduggery or obstreperousness. At most there is a disagreement about tidiness, and perhaps how to help a brother out. Yes, I'm being foolishness lest you might be foolish. It is certainly a narcissistic look.

For Once, There's Nothing Wrong with You People.

Let me familiarize possible assumptions with actual particulars. I resigned my last pastoral call at the end of 2022. I have continued committee service in my Presbytery, two standing and one ad hoc. My first vocation at present is habilitation and creation of a life-long vocation for my adult special-needs daughter, so I haven't considered a call. Per my convictions, I chose for us to worship with a local RPCNA congregation. Unlike the PCA, their ministers-- even without call-- are members of local congregations. Sessions have a responsibility of pastoral care for the ministers, and Presbytery holds jurisdiction in all matters regarding them as officers.

As a single man in my 50s, still walking out the absence of my wife after 6 years, and called to responsibilities often repugnant to my indwelling sin, I desired to submit to such oversight. The session was willing-- clearly stipulating that, per RPCNA practice, they would act according to the jurisdiction over me of Eastern Carolina Presbytery. My daughter and I became members. In my first annual report as a TE without call, I divulged that action and my intent to transfer my credentials to the RPCNA in the future; in fact, I submitted that letter three months early.

At the Stated Meeting which handled annual reports, some members raised the question of removing me from the roll per BCO 38-3a. Referencing the discretion possessed by Presbytery and the particulars of the irregularity at hand, I asserted that I had not de facto withdrawn myself from the oversight of Eastern Carolina Presbytery. The question was referred to the Shepherding Committee to bring a resolution to the next Stated Meeting. The committee asked if I was amenable to the motion for transfer, to which I acceded.

The substitute motion intended for this Saturday, is in order, germane and posited on direct reference to BCO 38-3a. It can be commended for procedural tidiness, though I do not know what other arguments might be adduced. People at a distance should recognize-- I'm being rather detailed for that purpose-- that a Presbytery has a decision to make. The BCO is open and the discretion of the court ought not to be weighed by tangential connection to something else, important to somebody else, in some other situation, for some other something-something.

I do not know what decision the court will make. I don't know the difference for my plans. I could remove the doubt. I could do that. I could withdraw my membership from the RPCNA congregation with an email, and render the substitute motion moot. (Moot-- you know you are attending to procedure with words like that.) The vows, which I most recently took, have done me great good in the last year, just as did a more assiduous attention to my vows as a PCA Teaching Elder over the last few years. If I must choose between vows for the public consideration of my office and vows taken for the good of my household, I'm not confused. And, I'm not in charge.

/ / / / /

Hæc autem, fratres, transfiguravi in me et Apollo, propter vos :

ut in nobis discatis, ne supra quam scriptum est,

unus adversus alterum infletur pro alio.