--- type: newsletter-issue title: State of the Church Today — Issue 04 issue: 4 date: 2026-06-21 audience: Pastors & Elders status: draft created: 2026-06-21T08:00 updated: 2026-06-21T08:00 --- # State of the Church Today *A weekly digest of Southern Baptist, Reformed, and broader theological news — curated for pastors and elders.* **Issue 04 · Sunday, June 21, 2026** > The Reformed world's attention moves north this week: the PCA's 53rd General Assembly convenes tomorrow in Louisville, where the long-awaited Christian Nationalism report arrives unfinished — its committee asking for another year rather than a verdict — while a dozen overtures press again on who may serve as deacon. --- ## ⛪ SBC & Convention Watch *Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.* **Why the IMB shift took fifteen years.** With Orlando adjourned, the post-mortems have begun on the budget vote that sends 51% of national Cooperative Program receipts to the International Mission Board. Baptist News Global traces the long road from the 2010 Great Commission Resurgence — the reallocation messengers first endorsed a decade and a half ago — and notes the unspoken cost: every dollar redirected to the IMB is a dollar the rest of the CP partners, including the seminaries and the ERLC, no longer receive. Worth watching as entity budgets feel the squeeze beginning October 2026. — [Baptist News Global](https://baptistnews.com/article/why-did-it-take-15-years-to-implement-greater-funding-for-imb/) · [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/messengers-approve-51-percent-of-national-cooperative-program-dollars-for-imb/) **Baptisms rise for a fifth straight year.** In NAMB's report to messengers June 10, president Kevin Ezell told the convention that Southern Baptist churches baptized 263,075 people in 2025 — the fifth consecutive annual increase. After years of decline narratives, a sustained upward trend is a genuine encouragement, even as the convention argues over governance; it is worth naming the ordinary, faithful evangelism behind the number. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/namb-presentation-to-messengers-highlights-love-for-missionaries-evangelism-resources/) --- ## 📖 Reformed & Confessional *Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.* **The PCA gathers in Louisville.** The Presbyterian Church in America's 53rd General Assembly convenes June 22–26 at the Kentucky International Convention Center, hosted by Ohio Valley Presbytery, with Kevin DeYoung, Greg Lawrence, and Joshua Reitano slated to preach. A record overture load and two live study committees make this one of the more consequential assemblies in recent memory. — [byFaith](https://byfaithonline.com/5-pca-stories-were-tracking-in-2026/) · [PCA GA](https://pcaga.org/) **The Christian Nationalism report arrives — unfinished.** The Ad-Interim Committee, chaired by David Strain, has tendered a roughly 35-page *partial* report and asked the Assembly for another year to finish, aiming to report fully to the 54th GA in 2027. What it does offer — a pastoral letter plus a set of Affirmations and Denials meant to mark the bounds of "scripturally and constitutionally acceptable opinion" — carries no constitutional weight on its own; only the church courts can rule a view in or out. Whether messengers receive, amend, recommit, or extend the work will signal how the PCA wants to handle the theonomy-and-nationalism question. — [byFaith](https://byfaithonline.com/christian-nationalism-study-committee-releases-partial-report/) · [AIC Report (PDF)](https://pcaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AICReport_CN.pdf) · [American Reformer](https://americanreformer.org/2026/06/the-pcas-unfinished-business-on-christian-nationalism/) **The diaconate is back on the floor.** Roughly a dozen overtures — better than one in eight tendered — touch the office of deacon: some to reserve "deacon" to ordained men, others to open the office to women, still others to create a "commissioned" lay role as a middle path. It is the perennial PCA fault line, and how the Assembly handles it will tell confessional Baptists watching from outside how a sister communion polices the line between conviction and latitude. — [Heidelblog](https://heidelblog.net/2026/05/2026-pca-overtures-a-simplified-preview/) --- ## 🕊️ Theology & Doctrine *Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.* **Christian nationalism is the doctrinal question of the season.** The PCA report is one data point in a wider conversation that is now reaching the local church. Russell Moore devoted a June 15 episode of his podcast to listener questions about how to oppose Christian nationalism without fracturing congregational unity — a sign the debate has moved from the journals to the pews. For elders, the pastoral task is distinguishing a healthy love of country from a political theology that would conscript the church to the state's ends. — [American Reformer](https://americanreformer.org/2026/06/the-pcas-unfinished-business-on-christian-nationalism/) · [The Russell Moore Show](https://www.christianitytoday.com/podcasts/the-russell-moore-show/) **A heavyweight Westminster commentary is coming.** Crossway has announced a verse-by-verse commentary on the Westminster Confession with contributions from J. V. Fesko, Sinclair Ferguson, Scott Swain, and Kevin DeYoung, slated for October. For Reformed Baptists who read the 1689 alongside its Presbyterian parent, a serious confessional commentary from that roster is one to pre-order and put in front of your officers. — [Crossway](https://www.crossway.org/press-room/) --- ## 🏛️ Culture & Church-State *Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.* **Church autonomy heads back to the Supreme Court.** The justices are weighing whether to take *U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O'Connell*, a case testing how far the First Amendment's church-autonomy doctrine reaches — specifically whether civil courts can adjudicate a fraud claim that turns on what was said from the pulpit about how donations would be used. The doctrine that keeps secular courts out of a church's internal affairs is the same one that shields a session's or an elder board's governance and discipline decisions; any narrowing would land close to home. — [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/church-autonomy-returns-to-scotus/) **The Ten Commandments fight is moving up the ladder.** With the Fifth Circuit having upheld Texas's classroom-display law this spring and cleared Louisiana's to take effect, the question of state-mandated Scripture in public schools is on a path toward the Supreme Court. However one judges the wisdom of legislating displays, elders may field questions from members who teach or send children into those classrooms; it is worth thinking through before it lands. — [Education Week](https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/appeals-court-allows-louisiana-ten-commandments-displays-to-proceed/2026/02) · [NOLA.com](https://www.nola.com/news/education/texas-ten-commandments-law-fifth-circuit-appeals-ruling/article_1808816d-2b11-4982-92e7-131f14e495d1.html) --- ## 🔥 Also Worth Noting *Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.* **Indiana megachurch fires its senior pastor.** Northview Church has dismissed senior pastor C. J. Johnson after years of accumulating concerns and what elders called "a significant allegation." Former leaders described a pattern — ten campus pastors departing by the end of 2025 citing "toxic leadership," elders pushed out for insufficient loyalty — culminating in an investigation into a propositioning allegation. A sober case study in how cultures of unaccountable leadership form long before the headline does. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/indiana-megachurch-pastor-c-j-johnson-fired-after-years-of-concerns-and-a-significant-allegation/) **An Acts 29 church examines its own culture.** Vintage Church in Raleigh, which fired co-founding pastor Tyler Jones in February after he acknowledged a years-long extramarital relationship, has commissioned an independent investigation and is surveying current and former members to ask whether its organization and culture contributed to the failure. The instinct to interrogate the *system*, not just the man, is the harder and more faithful path — and a model worth noting. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/prominent-acts-29-church-asks-former-members-for-help-with-investigation-of-founding-pastor-and-ministry-culture/) --- ## 🧭 For the Elder's Desk *A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.* > Twice this week the news rewards churches willing to do unfinished, unglamorous work: a study committee that asks for another year rather than a tidy verdict, and a congregation that investigates its own culture rather than its fallen pastor alone. Both resist the temptation to declare a matter settled before it actually is. A question for your elders: *Where are we tempted to close a hard question prematurely — to pass the motion, fire the man, post the statement — because finishing feels like faithfulness? And what would it cost us to keep the harder work open a little longer?* --- *State of the Church Today · Compiled June 21, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.*