The 92nd General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church met at Geneva College from June 3–9, 2026. Geneva College, founded in 1848 and governed by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America—a sister NAPARC church—is a private Christian liberal arts college located in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, about thirty-five miles northwest of Pittsburgh. With its Reformed heritage and its name recalling the Swiss city so closely associated with the Reformation, Geneva provided a fitting setting for a Presbyterian assembly.
This year’s agenda might have been more packed than ever before. One of the first tasks of the assembly is to elect a moderator. This is not someone who makes decisions for the body. He does not rule the assembly. He guides the proceedings, recognizes speakers, ensures motions are in order, keeps speeches on point, and helps the body accomplish its work decently and in order. The moderator is a servant of the assembly, not its master.
I was nominated to serve as moderator of the assembly. As a point of personal privilege, I was humbled by the trust the body of fathers and brothers placed in me. My goal was to serve well and to give glory to God for the gifts he has given me, including whatever strange combination of light humor, parliamentary interest, and a willingness to keep moving at a breakneck pace may be found in me. If the Lord can use even that combination for the good of his church, then we should give thanks.
The Tone of the Assembly
The General Assembly does not begin with a committee meeting but with worship. The previous year’s moderator preaches a sermon as the commissioners worship the Lord together. This is not an incidental matter. It sets the tone. Before we speak, move, amend, debate, vote, or appeal a ruling of the chair, we gather as servants before the King and Head of the church.
That tone is maintained throughout the week in three particular ways.
First, in singing. My first task as moderator was to select all the psalms and hymns that we would sing together. At the beginning of every session, we sang. After recesses, we sang. Before returning to difficult business, we sang. Hearing the voices fill the room is a joyful reminder of the gift God has given to us. Singing seems to tap into parts of the heart that ordinary reading does not always reach. It is hard to remain merely procedural when the room has just confessed together that Christ reigns, that God is our refuge, that the nations belong to the Lord, and that the church’s help comes from him.
Second, in prayer. The assembly pauses to pray every time a new session begins, after committee reports, before meals, after major actions, and throughout the work of the week. This reminds us of our dependence on the Lord. We are not trying to gather the most talented or wisest men in the OPC so that we can make the best decisions by our own strength. We are ordinary men who rely on the God who sustains Christ’s church by his Holy Spirit. Our forms matter. Our rules matter. Our constitution matters. But none of them can bless the church apart from Christ himself.
Third, in devotions. Most days we paused at 11:40 a.m. for a devotional from one of the pastors appointed by his presbytery. This gives commissioners an opportunity to be refreshed by God’s word throughout the week. It also reminds us that the assembly is not merely a deliberative body. It is the gathered church seeking to do the work of Christ’s kingdom under the authority of Christ’s Word.
Another part of the tone of General Assembly is fellowship. Brothers meet up once a year and reconnect. I had the joy of serving with seminary classmates as well as men I have gotten to know over the thirteen assemblies I have attended since my ordination in 2008. We spend time together over meals and in the evenings after the last session. This fellowship is not incidental. It is part of what makes the work possible. Men may disagree strongly on the floor and then sit at the same table later that evening and laugh together. That is a good thing.
On Saturday, we finish a bit early in order to prepare for the Lord’s Day, a refreshing break in the midst of a very busy week. Various churches host commissioners for morning worship and lunch. The OPC is a small denomination, so it is a joy to join these congregations for worship and mutual encouragement. The assembly’s work pauses because the church’s highest work continues: the worship of the living God.
The last tone-setting note is the fraternal addresses. Every year, representatives from various denominations send delegates to address our assembly. This year we welcomed eighteen delegates from churches as near as the RPCNA—we were meeting on their college campus—to the Reformed Churches of New Zealand. Some fraternal delegates have attended more OPC assemblies than many of the commissioners, such as Kevin Backus of the Bible Presbyterian Church. We receive greetings from these brothers, hear updates on their denominations, and pray specifically for them.
These addresses are more important than they may seem. They remind us that the OPC is not the whole church. We are one small part of Christ’s kingdom. We labor alongside brothers and sisters in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The Lord is building his church far beyond our own congregations and presbyteries. That is humbling, and it is encouraging.
The Work of the Assembly
After all of that, it is a wonder we get anything done, but we do. There is a great deal of work at every assembly. Broadly speaking, the General Assembly oversees denominational committees, considers overtures, receives study reports, reviews records, hears appeals and complaints, elects members to committees, approves budgets, and provides direction for the broader work of the church.
One major part of the assembly’s work is the oversight of denominational committees. These reports are not merely informational. They allow the whole church, through its commissioners, to review the work being done in its name.
Home Missions and Foreign Missions were among the most encouraging and sobering reports. We heard of church planting, revitalization, regional home missionaries, new visitors, baptisms, Bible studies, and the continued need for support through the Seed and Sower Fund. At the same time, we heard that the OPC has around forty vacant pulpits, slightly more than 10 percent of our congregations. Foreign Missions reported new missionaries entering the field but also noted that there were no active missionary applicants preparing for foreign service.
That need for laborers became one of the dominant themes of the assembly. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So, the assembly adopted a motion calling the churches of the OPC to a season of prayer and fasting during the week beginning September 13, 2026, asking the Lord of the harvest to raise up and equip men for gospel ministry at home and abroad. That may have been one of the most important actions of the assembly. Before we need better procedures, better budgets, or better plans, we need the Lord to give his church ministers, missionaries, elders, and deacons who love Christ and love his people.
The Committee on Christian Education reported on the work of catechetical materials, Great Commission Publications, the Trinity Psalter Hymnal, the Timothy Conference, and the various ways the church seeks to prepare men and women for faithful service. The assembly also approved a standing rules amendment formally establishing a ministerial training subcommittee within the Committee on Christian Education. That action fits directly with the broader concern of the assembly. The OPC needs to identify, encourage, train, and support men for gospel ministry.
The Committee on Diaconal Ministries reported on mercy ministry, disaster response, diaconal summits, and support for believers in places such as Ukraine. The report concerning Nigeria was especially sobering. We heard of severe persecution and suffering among believers there. It is one thing to discuss ecclesiastical relations in the abstract. It is another to remember that some of our brothers and sisters gather for worship under threats most of us can hardly imagine. Their witness should encourage us and strengthen our prayers.
Another major part of the assembly’s work this year was the consideration of various overtures. An overture is a formal request from a lower court of the church, usually a presbytery, asking the General Assembly to take some kind of action. Presbyterians do not usually say that the assembly “approves” an overture. We say it “grants” an overture, because the overture is a request. The assembly is deciding whether to grant, deny, amend, answer, or otherwise respond to that request.
The first major overture concerned the growing trend of Christian Nationalism. After considerable debate, the assembly granted the overture and formed a special committee of five members, with two alternates and a budget of ten thousand dollars, to study the proper biblical and confessional understanding of the relationship of church and state, with particular attention to teachings commonly called Christian Nationalism. The committee is to report back to the 94th General Assembly. This is a wise and necessary approach. The phrase “Christian Nationalism” is used in many different ways, sometimes carefully and sometimes carelessly. A study committee allows the church to slow down, define terms, search the Scriptures, examine our standards, and provide help to presbyteries, sessions, and members.
The second major overture concerned Kinism and ethnoracism. The assembly joined sister NAPARC churches in publicly affirming “that the 92nd General Assembly join with our sister churches from the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, our brothers in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, and the Presbyterian Church in America in their public commitment to condemn without distinction any theological or political teaching which posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity born of immutable human characteristics and…call to repentance any who would promote or associate themselves with such teaching, either by commission or omission.”
The assembly also acted to establish a Study Committee on Race, with members to be appointed by the moderator. This was significant work. It is not enough for the church to be vague where Scripture is clear. All men are made in the image of God. The gospel gathers one people in Christ from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Any teaching that treats race or ethnicity as establishing superiority or inferiority among image bearers must be rejected.
The assembly also considered other overtures, including one concerning Ordained Servant, which was denied after debate. Not every overture is granted. That, too, is part of the process. Presbyteries may bring concerns to the broader church, advisory committees may consider them, the assembly may debate them, and the body may finally determine that the requested action should not be taken. The process itself matters, even when the overture is denied. In the context of the controversy, the Committee on Christian Education talked about ways they will further safeguard the publication and ensure its usefulness for church officers.
The assembly also reviewed presbytery and standing committee minutes. This is one of the less visible but very important parts of Presbyterian accountability. Minutes preserve the record of the church’s acts. Through review of minutes, the assembly can note concerns, identify exceptions, and help ensure that lower courts are acting constitutionally. This work can feel painfully detailed. Sometimes it is painfully detailed. But careful records help protect the church, preserve institutional memory, and provide transparency.
The most time-consuming work of this assembly was the report of the Committee on Appeals and Complaints. Because these matters involve judicial and pastoral concerns, I will not address the details. That restraint is important. Appeals and complaints involve real people, real churches, real pain, and real consequences. They are not entertainment. They are not ecclesiastical sport. They are among the weightiest responsibilities entrusted to the courts of the church. The General Assembly is the final court of appeal, and cases that are presented are often very complicated.
A complaint challenges an action of a church court believed to be erroneous or delinquent. An appeal arises from a judicial case and asks a higher court to review the judgment of a lower court. In both cases, the point is not to create factions or provide an avenue for endless grievance. The point is that church courts can err. Sessions are accountable to presbyteries. Presbyteries are accountable to the General Assembly. And all courts are accountable to Christ through his Word.
This is one of the strengths of Presbyterianism. No pastor, session, presbytery, or assembly has absolute authority. Authority in the church is real, but it is always ministerial and declarative. Christ alone is king and head of the church. The courts of the church must administer justice under his Word, and when those courts are alleged to have erred, there must be an orderly way to seek review.
That work is slow. It requires patience. It requires commissioners to listen carefully, speak carefully, and remember that the matter before them is not merely a parliamentary exercise. It concerns the peace, purity, and unity of the church. As moderator, I also had to cede the chair during some of this work because I serve on the Committee on Appeals and Complaints. That was proper. The process matters. It matters not only that the church seeks to do justice but that it seeks to do justice in a way that is orderly, impartial, and above reproach.
The assembly also received protests concerning actions taken by the body. A protest is not an attempt to overturn the action by itself. It is a formal way for members of the court to place their disagreement into the record. That, too, is part of Presbyterian order. The minority may lose the vote, but their concerns are not simply erased.
Finally, the assembly completed elections, approved budgets, heard remaining committee reports, received communications, and set the next General Assembly for June 9–15, 2027, in Greenville, South Carolina, on the campus of Furman University. By the end, the assembly had done what assemblies do: heard reports, debated motions, amended language, made decisions, prayed, sang, laughed, disagreed, agreed, and finally adjourned.
Why It Matters
As moderator of the assembly, I was not seeking to drive the church in any particular direction. When all the motions have been made, all the amendments considered, all the reports received, and all the votes recorded, the church remains what it was before the assembly began: the flock of Christ purchased by his blood, governed by his word, and kept by his Spirit.
This is easy to forget in the middle of parliamentary procedure. But it is the reason the procedure matters. The assembly’s work is not an end in itself. It serves congregations, presbyteries, missionaries, ministers, elders, deacons, families, and saints who gather Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day to hear the Word preached, receive the sacraments, pray, sing, confess, and rest in Christ.
The work of the church is not finally done in assemblies. It is done in pulpits and hospital rooms, in session meetings and diaconal visits, in catechism classes and mission fields, in family worship and ordinary Lord’s Day faithfulness. But assemblies serve that work. They give order to it. They provide accountability. They remind us that we are not isolated congregations but a connected church. So while General Assembly may never be exciting in the way other gatherings are exciting, it is important. It is one expression of the church’s desire to do all things decently and in order before the face of God. May the Lord use even this ordinary work for the good of his people and the glory of his name.
©Everett Henes. All Rights Reserved.
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Everett Henes
Everett Henes (MDiv, ThM, DMin) is pastor of Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where he has served since 2008. He is husband to Kimberly and father of five children and grandfather of five (and counting!). He teaches US History and Philosophy of History for Jackson College in Michigan. He is currently working towards a PhD in Humanities with a focus in US Religious History from Faulkner University. In his spare time, he enjoys competing in powerlifting and strongman and teaching homeschoolers Taekwondo.
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