The Office Overtures - the PCA's Year of Ecclesial Turbulence w/Jared Nelson & Patrick Sanders

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is heading into its 2025 General Assembly in Louisville with a record 88 overtures on the docket, and at least 11 of them are fighting over a single question: what exactly is a deacon, who gets to be one, and what do you call the people who aren't? The previous high for overtures was around 60, and unusually, this year's batch contains very few duplicates—each one takes a slightly different angle on the same cluster of tensions. The hosts, joined by Jared Nelson and Patrick Sanders, walk through the major proposals one by one, explaining what each would do and why most of them probably won't pass.

The Backstory: How We Got Here

The current fight traces back to 2018, when Metro New York Presbytery submitted an overture to create an ordained, unisex office of deacon—meaning both men and women. Tim Keller was still alive at the time, and when he heard the presbytery had approved it, he reportedly said, "Young men, this is not the time for this." The overture was pulled before it reached the floor. But the issue didn't go away.