From Covenant to Confessional

I shouted over the many voices crammed into the Twin Lakes cafeteria, “I went to Covenant!” The man was likely the same age as me and looked very confused by this answer. “How did you end up here?” I am sure he meant well. I know exactly why he was confused. The seminary/denominational tribalism made him unable to comprehend that a Covenant graduate would want to attend the Twin Lakes Fellowship. Wasn’t it by invitation only? He may have thought I was an interloper and needed to be escorted off the premises. I wondered if he would be scandalized to learn our speaker that year, and the founder of the Twin Lakes Fellowship, Ligon Duncan, was a Covenant graduate.

We have a strong desire to label ourselves in the PCA. “I am of the GRN.” “I am of the Alliance for Mission and Renewal.” “I am winsome.” “I am confessional.” Labels, let us find those with similar interests and like-mindedness. It provides networks for ministers to build relationships and secure future calls. It can help the denomination in many ways I am sure, yet it also seems to foment tribalism. This tribalism starts at the seminary level. I did not realize when I began my studies at Covenant Theological Seminary that I would forever be associated with the “progressive” stream of the PCA. RTS guys are viewed as the safe choice. They could land anywhere on the PCA spectrum. The Greenville guys are the solid “conservative” crew. Then you have the Westminster crowds (Philly and Cali). We love them but don’t quite know what to do with them. For all of these labels, each school has anomalies. There would be no Jamar Tisby without RTS. There would be no Ligon Duncan without Covenant Seminary. Institutions do not always define or project a graduate’s path. I know a growing number of Covenant grads who have moved more towards the center and right in the denomination, largely after they left Covenant.

I want to briefly share my answer to that fellow pastor to justify my attendance at Twin Lakes.

1. I found freedom in moving from the broadly Reformed philosophy of ministry emphasized during my time at Covenant to the Shorter Catechism’s philosophy of ministry, “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, Sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.” (WSC 88). My primary task in my ministry is to preach the Word, pray the Word, and administer the Word (sacraments). I do not get distracted by cultural trends to reinvigorate ministry or grow the numbers of the church. Since 2016, I noticed more and more pastors became political. They claimed they weren’t they were preaching truth to power and against injustice. Their sermons, blogs, etc told a different story. They were no longer “ordinary” pastors. They were preaching and teaching politics and tossing in a few Scripture references so it would pass for preaching. I heard conservatives are the ones who do this, but I most often experienced it from the broadly Reformed churches I attended. I heard more of the gospel, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” in confessionalist churches and less “Building low-income housing is a gospel issue…universal health care is a gospel issue…Jesus would be marching at x protest…” My primary focus is the spiritual welfare of those Christ has entrusted to me and the spread of the gospel through our efforts as an outpost of His kingdom. As one recent author put it, “In this age, the kingdom of God and its extension come in the salvation of sinners (in all of its gracious blessings and benefits) rather than the transformation of societies.” The broadly Reformed seem to make secondary things the main thing whether it is an arts center, emphasis on “renewing the city,” or other societal issues.

2. The Unmasking of the National Partnership. I know many would wish the National Partnership away as if it was a fever dream, but it really happened and its unmasking has consequences. I first heard about it while still at Covenant Seminary. Pastor Tom Cannon wrote a sharp-witted blog post about why he declined an invitation to join. He included this fascinating disclosure, “(Full disclosure. Late last year I was given privy to what is now called the National Partnership. I was asked to be part of it. I politely but firmly declined, citing my aversion to organized affinity groups and my perhaps Pollyanna intention to see my presbytery as the only exception. The whole “confidential” thing was not mentioned. Had it, I would have been less polite.)” I had a lot of friends in the National Partnership. I also had one friend who thought he was but realized after the emails were leaked that he was not in it. He received an NP-adjacent email from a pastor but it was not the double-secret NP emails. The whole thing felt like, and pardon the now overused term, gaslighting. The NP wanted to be viewed as the good guys who wanted to make the PCA more open, diverse, and healthy. Unfortunately, they went about achieving these ends through the most unhealthy means - secrecy and political machinations.

3. Integrity - Whether it was a PCA church in San Francisco, a church plant outside Nashville, or the heir apparent to Tim Keller, the broadly Reformed in the PCA have taken a number of losses when it comes to ministry integrity over the past few decades. This is related to the above, but I kept being told to be winsome by bullies and see PCA church plants take money from PCA churches only to leave the denomination for more progressive ones.

4. I left the PCA. I served outside the PCA for a year in the Episcopal Church. I was under the authority of one of the few remaining “conservative” Bishops in the Episcopal Church. I got connected with EFAC (Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion). At one of their conferences and spoke with a longtime Church of England minister. He said the reason the Episcopal church and Church of England had become so unmoored from orthodoxy was because they did away with subscription to the 39 articles.  When I came back to the PCA, I realized that I knew very little about what it meant to be a Presbyterian even though I attended the PCA seminary and had been in PCA churches for almost a decade. I started reading the guys some professors warned me about, like R. Scott Clark, Joey Pipa, Doug Kelly, D. G. Hart, and others. If I was going to stay in the PCA, I needed to learn what it meant to be a Presbyterian.

5. My company of pastors. When I was ordained, I was bi-vocational, married with two kids, and served in a small town in Alabama. I needed support. Another newer Teaching Elder in my presbytery invited me to join his company of pastors through the Gospel Reformation Network. The group was a mixture of veteran pastors and brand-new ones. We catch up at GA, Twin Lakes, and talk often about getting together outside of PCA functions. We text almost every single day. We pray together, seek wisdom, and laugh together (and sometimes at each other). In fact, it was because of the company of pastor’s program that I ended up attending Twin Lakes.

That was the gist of what I said to the shocked gentlemen. I could have also shared that my company of pastors is made up of RTS, WTS (Cali), GPTS, and Covenant (two of us actually) graduates. We might tease each other about our respective seminaries, but I have found something to be grateful for in the training every man received. More importantly, I am thankful for the way we have all continued to grow and sharpen one another. Our seminary should not be the end all of our theological trajectory. Let us learn not to judge a man by where he graduated but by his continued convictions to the gospel of Jesus Christ and his endurance in plodding along in gospel ministry.

Philip Ryan is the Associate Pastor at the Kirk Presbyterian in Savannah, GA. You may follow his other writings at 

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