Denominations

Presbyterian Church in America

On the sources. The PCA publishes its Book of Church Order in full, section by section, with historical annotations explaining why provisions were adopted — among the best primary sourcing available to this project. The property, clergy and placement sections above quote it directly. This profile is nonetheless marked partial rather than primary-documents for an honest reason: only a handful of its sections were actually read. Money, affiliation and corporate structure are left largely open rather than inferred from the sections that were read, and several fields say so explicitly. A later pass through the full constitution should be able to close nearly all of them, since the text is public.

Identity

Founded

Founded in 1973 by congregations separating from the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Its property rule was not an afterthought of that founding but one of its purposes: the denomination's own historical digest records that the founders were "adamant to establish the property rights of the local congregation as a safeguard against potential financial and spiritual abuse by denominational hierarchy." A body formed by congregations leaving another body wrote its constitution so that leaving would never again be expensive.

Headquarters

The Administrative Committee, which maintains the constitution and serves the General Assembly, is based in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Authority is distributed among courts — session, presbytery, General Assembly — rather than concentrated in an office.

What it calls itself

Calls itself a denomination and a connectional church governed by courts. Presbyterian polity is genuinely connectional in its government — a congregation cannot ordain, call or dismiss its pastor alone, and its session answers to a presbytery — while being, in this body, entirely congregational in its property. That combination is the reason this profile exists alongside the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): the two share a vocabulary, a structure of courts, and much of a history, and differ on the one question that decides what a congregation can afford to do.

Congregations

1,667 churches as reported in 2024, a net gain of 22 over the previous year.

Adherents or attendance

400,751 members in 2024, an increase of 7,223 or 1.84% over the previous year. The PCA is among the few American denominations of any size reporting growth rather than decline.

Property

Who holds title

The local congregation

The congregation owns its property outright, and the constitution says so in terms that leave no room to construct a trust: "All particular churches shall be entitled to hold, own and enjoy their own local properties, without any right of reversion whatsoever to any Presbytery, General Assembly or any other courts hereafter created, trustees or other officers of such courts." The clause is worth reading closely for what it anticipates. It denies reversion not only to the courts that existed in 1973 but to any "hereafter created," and not only to the courts themselves but to their trustees and officers. It was drafted by people who had watched property claims be constructed, and who wrote to foreclose the construction rather than merely to decline it.

The instrument

None, by deliberate constitutional provision rather than by omission — and BCO 25-10 goes further than any comparable clause on this site by binding the denomination itself: "The provisions of this BCO 25 are to be construed as a solemn covenant whereby the Church as a whole promises never to attempt to secure possession of the property of any congregation against its will, whether or not such congregation remains within or chooses to withdraw from this body. All officers and courts of the Church are hereby prohibited from making any such attempt." Read closely, that is a promise not merely that no trust exists but that no claim will ever be made, extending expressly to congregations that withdraw, and binding every officer and court by prohibition. Where the United Methodist and PC(USA) constitutions assert an interest, this one forecloses the assertion. The distinction from a congregational body such as the Southern Baptist Convention is worth keeping: the SBC simply never claimed property, having no courts with authority over congregations. Here a denomination with real courts and real authority renounced the claim that authority would otherwise make available.

  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-9 and 25-10

When a congregation closes

Not established.Where the assets of a dissolving PCA congregation go was not established for this profile. Because no reversion to any court is permitted under BCO 25-9, the answer presumably lies in the individual church's articles and in state dissolution law rather than in the constitution, but the relevant BCO provisions were not read and no claim is made.

When a congregation departs

A departing congregation keeps its property. No release is required and no payment is owed, because no court ever held an interest that would need releasing — and under 25-10 the courts of the church are prohibited from attempting to secure the property of a withdrawing congregation against its will.

  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-9 and 25-10

Money

Where the money goes Presbyterian Church in America: Askings to presbytery and General Assembly, voluntary, no stated rate. The congregation Askings to presbytery and General Assembly Voluntary, no stated rate
Generated from this profile's own data rather than drawn by hand, so it cannot drift from the text. Rates are abbreviated here; the full terms and their qualifications are below.

Askings to presbytery and General Assembly

Voluntary, no stated rate

The PCA funds its committees and agencies from congregational giving that is requested rather than levied. The specific mechanism, its published rates if any, and the treatment of a church that gives nothing were not established for this profile, and the constitutional provisions governing it were not read; what is recorded here is only that no assessment enforceable against congregational property exists, which follows from BCO 25-9. Treat this entry as thinner than the rest of the profile.

What happens if it is not paid

Not established.Not established. What follows for a PCA congregation that gives nothing to the denomination was not researched, and it should not be inferred from the property rule.

Money that flows down

Not established.Whether the denomination or its presbyteries subsidise congregations that cannot support a pastor was not established for this profile.

Who sets the pastor's pay

Negotiated between congregation and pastor

Compensation is settled in the call itself, which the congregation votes and the presbytery then considers. Because the call is a document the presbytery must find in order before placing it in the minister's hands, the terms are subject to a court's review rather than to the congregation's judgment alone.

Who pays the pastor

The local congregation

The congregation pays from its own receipts. No denominational fund stands behind the salary, and none was located that supplements it.

Minimum standards

Not established.No denomination-wide minimum compensation standard was located. Whether presbyteries set their own floors when considering calls was not established.

Pension and benefits

Benefits are available through Geneva Benefits Group, the denomination's benefits organisation, and participation is largely voluntary: many of its products are taken up by the employee, with premiums paid through salary reduction, and eligibility runs to those employed at least thirty hours a week by a PCA church, school or ministry. No congregation is required to enrol its pastor, and the pastor's provision is accordingly a function of what each church chooses to do.

Clergy

Who credentials clergy

A regional body

Ministers are ordained by and hold their membership in a presbytery, not in a congregation: the constitution requires a minister to hold membership in the presbytery within whose geographical bounds he resides, unless his presbytery is satisfied there is reason otherwise. A pastor is therefore a member of a court that the congregation he serves does not control, and his standing survives the ending of any particular pastorate. The office of minister is restricted to men.

How a pastor is placed

Both — call within a supervised process

The congregation elects its pastor and the presbytery must concur. A church calls the man it wants; the call then goes to presbytery, which considers whether it is in order and whether it is for the good of the Church, and only if so places it in his hands. A session cannot install a pastor — only the presbytery installs. This is the arrangement the "hybrid" value exists for, and it sits between the two poles the site's other profiles occupy. A Southern Baptist congregation calls and nobody reviews; a United Methodist congregation receives and nobody asks. Here the congregation chooses and a court must agree — which means neither party can act without the other, and a congregation's preferred candidate can be refused.

Employer of record

The local congregation

The congregation employs and pays, and unlike the United Methodist case it also chooses — so this is not a split of the kind that field was extended to describe. The qualification is nonetheless real: the presbytery must concur in the call and, because the pastoral relationship is constituted by a court, the congregation cannot simply end it on its own motion. The employer here is local; the power to make and unmake the relationship is shared.

Removal

Removal from ministry runs through the presbytery, which holds the minister's membership and therefore his standing; a congregation cannot strip credentials it never conferred. The precise provisions for dissolving a pastoral relationship at the request of congregation or pastor were not read for this profile, and no claim is made about the procedure.

Security of tenure

Not established.No guaranteed placement equivalent to the United Methodist provision was located, and the constitutional treatment of a minister without a call was not researched. The structural expectation is that presbytery membership preserves standing without securing employment, but that is an inference and is not asserted here.

Governance

The legislative body

A General Assembly, meeting annually, sits above regional presbyteries, which sit above congregational sessions. Authority is held by courts composed of elders rather than by individuals: there are no bishops, and no officer of the denomination can direct a congregation personally. Amending the constitution requires action by the General Assembly with the concurrence of the presbyteries, which means no single assembly can alter the settlement on its own.

Who oversees the congregation

A council of elders, not a person

A court, not a person: there are no bishops, and no officer of the denomination may direct a congregation personally. Oversight rests in the presbytery, composed of teaching and ruling elders, which holds ministers' membership, must concur in a call, and alone installs a pastor. Sharing this value with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the point of the pair. The two bodies are overseen by the same kind of institution, by elders sitting as a court, and reach opposite conclusions about property — which is the clearest demonstration on this site that the form of oversight does not determine the material arrangements. What differs is not who oversees but what the overseer was given power over, and BCO 25-10 answers that by prohibiting the courts from ever attempting to take a congregation's property.

Who may plant or close a church

Not established.The provisions governing the organisation of a new congregation and the dissolution of an existing one were not read for this profile. Presbytery involvement is the structural expectation in a body where presbyteries constitute pastoral relationships, but the paragraphs were not checked and no claim is made.

Who owns the name

Not established.Not established. No evidence was located that the denomination licenses or restricts congregational names, and the question is complicated by the fact that "Presbyterian" is shared among many separate American bodies, so that a congregation's name rarely identifies which one it belongs to. Whether the PCA holds and enforces marks in its own name was not researched.

Discipline

Discipline runs through the courts, with the Book of Church Order devoting a separate part to the rules of discipline and providing for original jurisdiction over ministers in the presbytery rather than in the congregation. The detailed procedure, appeal routes and standards were not read for this profile and are not described here.

Joining and leaving

How a congregation joins

Affiliation is treated as the congregation's own act, taken under civil law rather than prescribed by church courts. BCO 25-11 provides that in the matters covered by chapter 25 — "including specifically the right to affiliate with or become a member of this body or a Presbytery hereof" — a local church may act "in accordance with the civil laws applicable to such local congregation," and that where it does so, "such shall be the action of the local congregation or local church." The reception process on the presbytery's side was not read for this profile.

  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-11

How a congregation leaves

The congregation may simply vote to go

The congregation decides, under its own civil-law governing documents, and the denomination has bound itself not to contest the property. BCO 25-11 names "the right to withdraw from or to sever any affiliation of connection with this body or any Presbytery hereof" among the matters a local church may act on in accordance with the civil laws applicable to it, providing that such action "shall be the action of the local congregation or local church" — and adding that each congregation "shall be competent to function and to take actions covering the matters set forth herein" so long as it complies with civil law. So the vote threshold is whatever the congregation's own charter or bylaws require; the constitution sets none and defers to state law. Placed beside the PC(USA), where a congregation's relationship "can be severed only by constitutional action on the part of the presbytery" and a majority vote to leave does not decide who keeps the building, the two Presbyterian bodies are as far apart on departure as any pair on this site.

  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-11
  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-10

What leaves with them

The property, without question or payment. The minister's standing does not travel with the congregation, since it is held in the presbytery; a pastor leaving with a departing church leaves the presbytery that ordained him.

When the body removes a congregation

Not established.Whether and how a presbytery may dissolve a congregation or remove it from the denomination was not established for this profile. What is settled is the property consequence: under 25-10 the courts of the church are prohibited from attempting to secure a congregation's property against its will in any circumstance, so removal cannot carry the asset consequence it carries in bodies with a trust clause.

Legal form

Corporate structure

Not established.Not researched. Congregations are separately incorporated under state law and hold their own property under BCO 25-9, but the denomination's own corporate form and that of its committees were not established.

Tax status

Not established.Not established, including whether the denomination administers a group exemption ruling covering congregations.

Liability

Not established.Not researched.

Further reading

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