Overview
Welcome to The Functional Female Officer Report, brought to you by Save the PCA. This research demonstrates—through evidence gathered from publicly available websites, live streams, and church documents—that numerous PCA churches, across presbyteries nationwide, have placed women in official roles under various titles. In practice, these roles function in officer-like ways, both in public worship and in the governance of the church.
The examples are not few or peripheral. We have documented women leading calls to worship, reading Scripture, offering pastoral prayers, leading confessions of sin, exhorting the congregation during tithes and offerings, distributing the elements alongside elders, and delivering other public prayers from the pulpit. Based on the available evidence, the only functions left restricted in public worship are preaching the sermon and reading the words of institution before communion.
The parallels with ordained office do not stop there. Women are nominated, put through officer training, enter a candidate phase, and are then initiated and commissioned before the congregation, taking public vows. In more than a few churches, women serve on boards explicitly tasked with shepherding or “pastoring” the women of the church. Others sit in on session meetings as “elder advisors,” acting as representatives or the official “voice of the women,” though without a vote.
Many of these councils and shepherding boards echo concepts found in Alongside Care [1] (Store link) [2], a book promoted by the PCA Committee on Discipleship Ministries. Its general editor, Christina Fox, has gone so far as to suggest that such women should also play a role in discipline cases involving female members. Likewise, a publicly posted position paper entitled “Is There a Third Way in Complementarian Women’s Ministry?” [3], authored by PCA elders in a church with a Women’s Ministry Council, openly proposed “Parallel Helpmates.” They describe this as a “model [that] fits naturally with what the PCA’s national women’s ministry leaders have promoted.” According to their own definition, this “third way” appoints women through nomination, examination, and election by the elders, placing them to work alongside both elders and deacons in various ministries and even granting them direct oversight of women’s discipleship.
This is the sort of ministry now on the rise, and already present in large, influential PCA churches: nominated, trained, and commissioned female leadership boards functioning in parallel to the ordained offices, involved in nearly every aspect of church life except preaching, reading the words of institution, and casting votes in session. There are various rationales for this—the best being a desire to better disciple women, particularly in difficult situations. But history has shown again and again that misplaced, though noble, intentions often harden into extra-biblical forms of church government that fracture peace and undermine unity. On the current trajectory, the inevitable outcome will be the formal establishment of female elders in the PCA.
Noble Intentions
A quick word about noble intentions. We do not believe that every church taking up these practices is doing so out of willful disobedience to Scripture or with malicious intent to overturn the BCO (Book of Church Order). Nor do we think every pastor involved is some secret progressive bogeyman. Many of these men are sincere and well-intentioned. They have faithfully cared for their congregations and even supported fellow elders in other churches.
Still, a wide spectrum of people are caught up in this for different reasons. Some are more committed to progressivism than a faithful interpretation of scripture. Operating from a progressive framework/epistemology, they are deliberately working toward the normalization of female officers by creating functional female officers. Others, however, are simply trying to better disciple the women in their congregations and have adopted what they believe to be pragmatic solutions that fit within the PCA.
Without a limiting principle, the church will inevitably embrace practices that are not based in scripture, leading to embracing practices contrary to scripture. Noble intentions do not influence the outcome, because the rationale for both the current and predicted future practices are the same. Church history bears this out. Calvin, in his Institutes (Book 4, Chapter 2), [4] explains how the church gradually drifted into what became the Roman Catholic system of governance. Closer to home, the PCUS did not begin with female ordination. Yet, through incremental steps, it arrived there—until those bound by conscience finally left to form the PCA.
In 2008, Pastor Tim Keller published a paper [5] defending female deacons and pointed to examples that, in his view, did not result in a slippery slope. But only a decade later, City Reformed Church had moved from deaconesses to parallel boards with “shepherdesses.” Without a limiting principle, outcomes that utilize the same rationale will come to fruition. The History of the PCUSA will be repeated in the PCA.
Functional female officers will inevitably result in female ordination. There are no compelling reasons to predict otherwise.
Methodology
Our current research is wholly dependent on what PCA churches have chosen to make public through their websites and social media. We worked only with what was publicly available. Yet even from that limited vantage point, the trend is unmistakable. This is not just a couple of isolated cases—it is not only widespread, it is more popular than it was in past years [6], so the real numbers are likely higher.
At the same time, many of the positions we encountered were marked by vague and cryptic titles, making it difficult to determine the scope of those positions. For example, some churches use the term “deaconess” to describe nothing more than a female assistant to the deacons. However, in other cases, the same word is being used to describe something much closer to the “alongside caregivers” advocated by Christina Fox and outlined in the paper from City Reformed Presbyterian. [3] This lack of consistency, coupled with a general lack of transparency, makes it difficult to measure the full extent of the problem.
That is why transparency is not optional—it is essential. Yet when an overture was brought to General Assembly this year [7] that would have required churches to report their deacons, it was voted down. That decision only underscores the concern. Without meaningful transparency, the PCA is choosing to ignore the issue. When an issue remains unresolved for long enough, it becomes the new normal.
Lack of Transparency
There have been many within the PCA who have decried our approach—taking publicly available information and showing it to the public. They accuse us of “litigating in public.” They believe themselves to be exempt from what they call “internet litigation” and have even suggested that our work subverts the BCO. It does not.
We have simply gathered public information to demonstrate that this is a systemic problem that must be addressed. One reason we went about it this way is because we had reason to believe that those implicated in this report would attempt to remove evidence of their implication. It’s likely we wouldn’t have discovered as much as we did if we had conducted our research in a less swift and systematic way. For example, when Michael Foster highlighted on his X account a PCA church that had publicly listed a woman as “Pastor of Women,” Within 24 hours, the title was quietly changed to “Shepherd of Women.” [8] No statement. No explanation. Just deletion.
All the while, several teaching/ruling elders dismiss concerns, insisting that these are isolated incidents and not deserving of a systematic response. The question we ask, how many incidents do there need to be? Because the correct number of functional female officers in the PCA is zero.
Findings
Most of our research was conducted via the PCA church directory made publicly available by the PCA Administrative Committee. We worked on a version that was updated on September 18th, 2025. Of the 1964 churches on the directory, only 78% of these churches had websites we could survey. Those we could not survey either had a website in a foreign language (typically Korean), a broken website, or no website in the directory altogether. 16% of functional english websites had a combination of no elders, no deacons, and/or no other relevant roles listed. These websites were evaluated as not having functional female officers.
Of the websites surveyed, 2.8% of them listed one or more women that we identified as a shepherdess or a functional shepherdess. 6.0% of them listed one or more women that we identified as a deaconess or a functional deaconess. In total, 7.3% of the churches had some form of shepherdess or some form of deaconess.
Churches that list functional female officers on their website are distributed throughout the denomination, but not equally distributed. 40% of the presbyteries had no functional female officers listed on their congregations’ websites at all. 36% of the presbyteries had one to three congregations with functional female officers. The figure below shows the presbyteries that had four or more congregations with functional female officers.
Part of what has made this problem so hard to identify is the sheer number of unique titles used for functional female officers. Even with extensive “bucketing” (A term we use to describe grouping similar titles under one name) there are over 70+ unique titles. The figure below shows some of the titles that are the most common.
Calls to Action
Raise Awareness
Many in the PCA still don’t realize how widespread this issue has become. The rise of functional female officers is not isolated and it’s not slowing down. We’ve documented numerous examples from churches across the denomination.
Action: Make sure your pastors, elders, and members know this is happening. Share the data. Start conversations in your presbyteries and congregations. If you are a teaching or ruling elder, sign up. If you aren’t, encourage your teaching and ruling elders to sign up.
Help Verify and Expand the Data
Our research is ongoing. We want accuracy and accountability, not speculation.
Action: If you know of a PCA church that has women functioning in officer-like roles, and you can verify it with evidence, please share it with us. Every verified case sharpens the picture of what’s really happening. You can either use our contact form or email tips@savethepca.com
Support Transparency and Accountability
We need greater visibility into who holds office and what those offices do.
Action: Encourage your presbyteries to adopt overtures like Overture 34 from Savannah River Presbytery, which requires churches to report on session and diaconate membership and duties. Transparency is not division—it’s integrity.
Clarify Ordination vs. Commissioning
The PCA has blurred the line between ordination and commissioning, creating a functional loophole.
Action: Push for an official distinction in denominational documents. Presbyteries should also examine candidates for ministry on their understanding of what women can and cannot do under Scripture and the BCO.
Recover the Church’s Catholic Responsibility
The Church of Christ is one, holy, catholic, and universal. When one branch tolerates confusion or corruption, all suffer.
Action: Remember that the health of the PCA matters to all Reformed believers. The church does not belong only to elders—it belongs to the entire body. Every Christian bears some responsibility for her faithfulness.
Join the Work
If you care about the faithfulness of the PCA and want to see this research continue and expand, we’d love for you to join us.
Action: Visit www.savethepca.com to sign up, stay informed, and learn how you can help. Whether that means verifying data, supporting research, or helping spread awareness, every contribution matters.
Footnotes
- [Archive Link: archive.ph/Cz1AG]
- [Archive Link: archive.is/hGi4b]
- Snoke, David, Sandra Snoke, and Matthew Koerber. “Is There a Third Way in Complementarian Women’s Ministry?” City Reformed PCA, May 13, 2018. archive.is/Jntp3. [Download PDF]
- Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845. ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes/institutes.vi.iii.html.
- Keller, Tim. “The Case for Commissioning (Not Ordaining) Deaconesses.” byFaith, no. 21 (August 25, 2008). byfaithonline.com/the-case-for-commissioning-not-ordaining-deaconesses/. [Download PDF]
- Hall, David W. 2024. “Deaconesses in the Presbyterian Church in America.” The Aquila Report, June 10, 2023. theaquilareport.com/deaconesses-in-the-presbyterian-church-in-america/. [Archive Link: archive.is/X71qo]
- Savannah River Presbytery. Overture 34: Amend RAO 16 to Require Reporting on Session and Diaconate Membership and Duties. Presbyterian Church in America, 2025. pcaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Overture-34_SavannahRiver.pdf. [Download PDF]
- Foster, Michael (@thisisfoster). “Image of Kerstin Armstrong, labeled as ‘Pastor of Women’ and then ‘Shepherd of Women’.” X, September 24, 2025, 15:05. https://x.com/thisisfoster/status/1970867298199310531 [Archive Link: archive.is/5TmvW]