As we in the PCA and the EPC seek to minister as ambassadors of God’s grace, we must be committed both to the task of loving the lost, and to our duty not to see any sin as beyond the saving grace of our Savior Jesus Christ. So, we pray that we all would remain committed to bringing the gospel to those in sexual sin, without compromising God’s Word and its faithful presentation in the Westminster Standards. Yet I also will pray for wisdom in your future decisions on these matters, because our evangelistic desire should not lead to any attenuation of the need for repentance.
Dear brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC),
Greetings, and Grace and Peace to those who love and serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Reviewing the events at your recent 44th General Assembly of the EPC, I know that you, like many other American Reformed Churches, are facing difficult issues of ministry in matters relating to sexuality, temptation, and same-sex attraction. As a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), I was also interested and sympathetic to your recent challenges concerning a congregation (Memorial Presbyterian in St. Louis, MO) and her ministers who were formerly in our own denomination petitioning to join the EPC.
Now, hearing that you have formed a committee to study and report back on these issues in two years, I felt compelled to write an open letter of encouragement and appeal to those in the EPC. As I have talked to many fellow PCA elders in the past few weeks, all were thankful for particular local EPC congregations known to work and labor in the proclamation of the gospel of our Triune God. We appreciate those of you who have been encouraging and working with us in these labors across denominational lines for years.
I write to express that I—along with many others in the PCA—are committed to pray for your denomination, your churches, and the decisions that you will be making through the newly formed committee and in future General Assemblies. While conflict and controversy are never pleasant, we are reminded that when God works through wisdom and discipline, we can have comfort from Hebrews 12:11: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
I also write to commend to you the published work of the PCA and several of its presbyteries and ministers on many matters directly related to your own deliberations. Many of us are grieved that rather than work within the polity of the PCA in seeking clarification and repentance where necessary, Memorial Presbyterian Church (again, together with her ministers) departed from us and did not continue to seek that peace in our courts. Below are some examples of the work we produced on issues that had surfaced up to the point of their departure:
- Our General Assembly worked through many issues regarding sexuality, desire, and same-sex sexual attraction, producing a thorough report. Click here or copy the following link to access the Report of the Ad Interim Committee on Human Sexuality (2021): https://pcaga.org/aicreport/.