Our Denomination

From its inception, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has resolved to be “faithful to the Scriptures, true to the Reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.”  The PCA was officially organized on December 4, 1973. The first leaders and members of our denomination felt the need for a strongly biblical, evangelical, and Reformed witness to Christ. They wanted to be part of a denomination that honors God and his Word. They desired a believing fellowship that is committed to evangelism, Christian education, and training for service as top priorities in the Church.  They felt that church leaders should affirm without compromise the great biblical beliefs of the Christian faith. Many of the PCA’s founders separated from their former denomination because of a perceived compromise of basic Christian doctrines.  After years of sincere efforts to call their former denomination to revival and renewal, they were led by God to withdraw and form a new church body. The new denomination began with 250 congregations and 50,000 members.

Within a few years the PCA grew to include more than 500 churches with nearly 80,000 members. In 1982 the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod joined with us, bringing almost 25,000 new members into our denomination.  Today the PCA is one of the faster growing denominations in North America, with over 1650 churches throughout the USA and Canada.  There were over 345,000 members as of December 2007.

The influence of the PCA extends far beyond the local church.  Our mission agency, Mission to the World, has 519 career missionaries in almost 60 nations of the world, 169 two-year missionaries, and over 6500 short term missionaries.  Because of the unique relationship between Mission to the World and over thirty mission organizations with whom some of our missionaries are working, some consider that the influence is far greater than our size might indicate.  Indeed, PCA churches support an additional 690 career missionaries, covering over 130 nations.  Further, with more than 100 chaplains in the military, Veterans Administration, prisons, and hospitals, and 45 college and university campus ministers, the Gospel is proclaimed to a rather large audience around the world not reached through usual channels.  Because of the emphasis on education, there are many members of the PCA who are teachers and professors at all levels, including a significant number of large universities and theological seminaries.

The PCA is a progressive denomination.  We value our tradition, but we are not old-fashioned!  We hold to the faith of the Bible and of those who have gone before us, but we strive to proclaim God’s truth as imaginatively and creatively as possible.   We sincerely desire to spread the gospel to every land, to make disciples and teach them the faith once for all delivered by God to his church. And we are eager to serve people in need, resisting inhumanity and injustice, working for peace, honor, and dignity among all people without discrimination.

The PCA is based firmly on a biblical theology that seeks to answer the questions and issues of each culture and people to which we minister. We strive for worship in which the presence and power of God within the church bring transformation to the surrounding culture through the relevant application of biblical truth to the issues and challenges people are facing in their daily lives.  We are committed to leading others to faith in Jesus Christ, and introducing them to the church through the ministry of the Word and sacrament, and through deeds of mercy and service to the needy.  We believe in the freedom of every member to minister through the spiritual gifts God has given, and also in the responsibility to do so under the spiritual authority and loving discipline of the church.  We are committed to lovingly interacting with and challenging non-Christian thought and behavior, and also to the demonstration of the truth through the practice of holiness and love in Christian fellowship.  We believe in the biblical concept of the family and are also eager to minister to the divorced, the widowed and the single parent. We seek to teach and disciple men and women in the whole counsel of God, and to minister to the needs of the whole person. In this new century, the Presbyterian Church in America continues its commitment to evangelism and the building up of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For more information on our denomination, visit the PCA website here.