New Investigation Finds Tons Of PCA Churches With ‘Deaconesses’
This article is a slightly edited version of this X Thread by Paul Biegler.
I have recently concluded an investigation into the many churches in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) to determine whether any of them have female deacons (or “deaconesses” as they are commonly called) listed on their websites.
I am now ready to release my initial findings. This data comes from readily available information on PCA church websites, taking these sites at face value, as this is how the churches have chosen to present themselves.
Background on me: I am a member in good standing of a PCA church. I am not an ordained Elder or Deacon, but I have been a lifelong member of the PCA and deeply care about its wellbeing. I love the PCA and want to see it flourish in purity and peace.
Context: At the PCA’s annual General Assembly in 2024, an Amendment to Section 7-3 of the PCA’s constitutional Book of Church Order (BCO) was ratified by at least 2/3 of the Presbyteries. This Amendment deals with titles in the PCA and now reads as follows, with the underlined portion being the amended language:
I should also note that Section 9-7 of the BCO (below) includes the following provision for “assistants to the deacons.”
Accordingly, I did not count churches that made it clear that women on their Leadership or Staff pages were “assistants to the deacons” or something functionally similar. However, the use of the term “deaconess” would still appear to violate the amended language of BCO 7-3, so I have included these churches in my count of “deaconess” churches.
The total amount of churches I looked at was 1,726 from 78 Presbyteries.
Due to language issues, I did not include any data from any of the churches in the nine Korean Presbyteries.
Note: This is not to say that churches in the Korean Presbyteries do not have any problems…
Of the 1,726 churches, 228 of them (or about 13%) had dead links or links that no longer led to a church website.
Notably, several church websites now unfortunately appeared to be owned by explicit or gambling services companies.
Of the 1,726 churches, 683 of them (or about 40%) clearly had their Deacons listed and these lists did not include any women. For the most part, these churches appeared to be encouragingly faithful to the BCO.
Some of these churches did have separate potentially troublesome issues such as “Shepherdesses” or a separate “Diaconal Ministry Team” that included men and women.
There was also a pattern I noticed wherein the “Women’s Ministry Team” was given higher prominence on the webpage than the Diaconal, or even the Session(!). None of these strictly violate the BCO, but they are notable.
Of the 1,726 churches, 709 of them (or about 41%) I categorized as “unknown,” meaning they did not have a deacon list or the word “deacon” used on their websites.
This was the largest portion of the churches in the PCA. I will have more detail on these “unknown” churches later below.
Of the 1,726 churches, 18 of them (or about 1%) were fuzzy or unclear.
For instance, they may have had a statement indicating acknowledgment of the PCA’s position, but did not distinguish deacons from assistants to the deacons or still used the term “deaconess” contrarily to BCO 7-3. Of these churches, approximately half were concerning enough that I flagged them for further investigation.
Finally, of the 1,726 churches, 88 of them (or about 5%) clearly had deaconesses or their functional equivalent on their websites.
If these websites are accurate and up to date (which the overwhelming majority appeared to be), these churches would be in violation of the BCO.
The top states in this category were New York (9 churches in violation), California (8), Pennsylvania (8), North Carolina (7), Tennessee (5), and Texas (5). Separate lists of these churches, broken down by Presbytery, will be linked below.
Returning to the 709 “unknown” churches which did not clearly identify their deacons on their websites, I have made a few notes based on patterns observed:
First, I must acknowledge that there are likely many small churches and church plants on this list that simply have not elected any deacons, due to size. Assumedly, any future deacons would conform to BCO 7-3.
Likewise, I am personally aware of multiple churches on this unknown list that do not have any deaconesses, but do not choose to display their deacon lists on their websites.
Second, the vast, and I mean VAST, majority of these churches appeared to have eschewed the office of deacon altogether, replacing it with vague, unordained titles. Such titles seemed to include, for example, “Ministry Team Leaders,” “Serve Team,” “Directors of Service,” etc.
Third, I must also note that many of the above churches also appeared to be involved in other political activism. For example, here are some samples pulled from some of these “unknown” churches.
Fourth, I have been privately made aware that at least one of the churches on this list is believed to have deaconesses, but has pulled any acknowledgment of such from its website since the passing of BCO 7-3. I noticed this pattern more broadly with many of these churches, which appeared to be “hiding” their deacon boards.
Upon further examination, almost without exception, further investigation revealed the presence of deaconesses. This practice is obviously highly concerning.
These findings lead me to personally conclude that the amount of “unknown” churches that have deaconesses is likely relatively sizable. However, I did not make any specific findings regarding the number and will not speculate here.
Lastly, before a breakdown of the churches below, I want to clearly express that this was a large undertaking for one person. While I have tried to give this investigation the soberness, rigor, and accuracy it deserves, I may have made a mistake. If you notice that a mistake has been made, please feel free to DM me with your explanation and I will be happy to take a look
Please see below for a breakdown by Presbytery of the 88 churches listing deaconesses or the functional equivalent, including screenshots and explanatory information, if relevant.
The original OP lists them all here, but here is a small sample:
About Author
“New” investigation? Well, that was money poorly spent. Go walk into any large PCA church and I could have told you that for FREE. It is in the small churches too, but to say the results are surprising is a joke. Now go to an investigation as to why some churches are taking several years to find a pastor. The one I know personally is on year 4 and it isn’t the church. They aren’t leftist.
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