Presbyterian Church
Mainline Protestant denomination in the US
Follow Presbyterian Church on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| February 2025 | Planned significant reductions in missionary support were scheduled to be implemented. |
| February 2025 | Planned significant reductions in the number of missionaries supported by the Presbyterian Church (USA). |
| 2024 | Cecelia Armstrong and Anthony Larson are elected as Co-Moderators at the 226th General Assembly. |
| December 31 2024 | The Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) and Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) are dissolved. |
| November 5 2024 | Rev. Jihyun Oh announced program reconfigurations to balance the 2025 and 2026 budgets, including planned budget reductions. |
| October 2024 | Jihyun Oh is promoted by the Unification Commission to lead the interim unified agency in October. |
| October 10 2024 | The role of PMA President and Executive Director was phased out, with staff now reporting to Rev. Jihyun Oh, the new Stated Clerk of the General Assembly. |
| August 16 2024 | A motion was approved at a specially called Unification Commission meeting to dissolve the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) effective December 31, 2024. |
| July 2024 | Jihyun Oh is installed as the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly in July. |
| March 2024 | Leadership changes in communications, with the former OGA Communications Director becoming PCUSA Communications Director and the former PMA Communications Director taking a new role in Vision Integration & Constituent Service. |
| February 7 2024 | Rev. Mienda Uriarte, director of World Mission, explained the layoffs as an effort to harmonize compensation and eliminate perceived inequity. |
| February 5 2024 | Jihyun Oh announces 35 additional layoffs in World Mission staff, reducing positions from 79 to 44. |
| 2023 | Reported membership demographic shows 33.5% of Presbyterian members are over 71 years old, with 88% of members being white. |
| 2023 | Membership declines to 1,094,733 active members across 8,572 congregations, with average worship attendance dropping to 445,414, reflecting a significant decline in membership over the past decade. |
| June 2023 | J. Herbert Nelson steps down as Stated Clerk, becoming the first African American to hold this position. |
| 2022 | Approximately 20% of local churches, representing an estimated 10% of members, did not report their church statistics. |
| 2022 | Ruth Santana-Grace and Shavon Starling-Louis are elected as Co-Moderators of the denomination. |
| June 2022 | At the 225th General Assembly, the Committee on International Engagement votes to declare Israel an apartheid state, designate Nakba Day, and call for an end to the Gaza Strip blockade. |
| 2020 | Continued membership erosion continues, with a 4.35% decrease, likely influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and broader trends of religious disaffiliation. |
| 2020 | COVID-19 pandemic likely impacts church membership, with numbers dropping to 1,245,354, representing a -4.35% decrease. |
| 2020 | Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley are elected as Co-Moderators of the Presbyterian Church (USA). |
| 2019 | End of a membership decline period where the denomination lost over a million active members since 2005. |
| 2018 | Diane Givens Moffett was elected as Executive Director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, serving from 2018 to 2024. |
| 2018 | Publication of the most recent Book of Common Worship, reflecting contemporary worship practices and theological developments. |
| 2016 | J. Herbert Nelson, the first African American Stated Clerk, is elected to the position. |
| 2016 | Membership continues to decline, reaching 1,482,767 with a -5.71% year-over-year decrease, marking the steepest decline in the observed period. |
| 2015 | Membership decline accelerates, with a 5.70% drop, representing a significant reduction in church participation. |
| 2015 | Both the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil and the Evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed Church in Peru cut ties with the Presbyterian Church (USA) due to conflicts over homosexuality-related teachings. |
| 2015 | The presbyteries ratified the 2014 constitutional amendment redefining marriage, leading to the departure of several hundred congregations from the Presbyterian Church (USA). |
| 2014 | Pew Research Center study revealed Presbyterians as the fourth most financially successful religious group in the United States, with 32% of Presbyterians living in households earning at least $100,000 annually. |
| 2014 | Membership drops below 1.7 million, with a significant decline of -5.54% from the previous year. |
| June 2014 | The General Assembly approved a constitutional change redefining marriage from 'between a woman and a man' to 'between two people', officially allowing gay and lesbian weddings within the church and giving clergy the option to perform same-sex marriages. |
| June 20 2014 | General Assembly in Detroit approves divestment from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions stocks in protest of Israeli policies on the West Bank, sparking controversy with the American Jewish Committee. |
| June 19 2014 | During its 221st General Assembly, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to allow same-sex marriages, lifting a previous ban and permitting pastors to perform marriages in jurisdictions where it is legal. |
| January 2014 | PC(USA) publishes 'Zionism unsettled', a controversial study guide that was later withdrawn from sale after criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. |
| 2013 | The presbyteries ratified the 2012 General Assembly vote permitting the ordination of openly gay persons to the ministry. |
| 2013 | Average denominational worship attendance recorded at 748,774 members. |
| 2012 | The Presbyterian Church of India dissolved its cooperation with the Presbyterian Church (USA) after the PC(USA) voted to ordain openly gay clergy. |
| 2012 | The Mizoram Presbyterian Church ended its relationship with the Presbyterian Church (USA) over doctrinal differences related to homosexuality. |
| 2012 | The General Assembly voted to allow the ordination of openly gay persons to the ministry. |
| 2011 | The National Presbyterian Church in Mexico severed ties with the Presbyterian Church (USA) due to disagreements over teachings regarding homosexuality. |
| August 2011 | American National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus (NMEPC) endorses the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. |
| July 10 2011 | The constitutional amendment officially took effect, removing explicit marriage and chastity requirements from the Book of Order and returning ordination decision-making authority to individual ordaining bodies. |
| July 10 2011 | Constitutional amendment took effect, removing mandatory marriage and chastity requirements for church officers and returning ordination standards determination to individual presbyteries. |
| May 2011 | A majority of presbyteries ratified the constitutional amendment allowing more flexible ordination standards. |
| 2010 | The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met to discuss significant denominational matters and potential controversial issues. |
| 2010 | Presbyterian Church (USA) begins a period of consistent membership decline, starting with 2,016,091 members and experiencing a -3.03% decrease. |
| July 2010 | General Assembly voted 373 to 323 to propose a constitutional amendment removing the explicit requirement for marriage and chastity in ordination standards, shifting ordination decision-making back to individual presbyteries. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Presbyterian Church (USA), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.