Category: Updates

We are pleased to announce that Abortion and the Church is now available in audio form here (subsequent parts to be released as they are recorded). Please subscribe to be notified when new chapters are released, and please be sure to share!

Tomorrow, July 6th, Evangel Presbytery will be observing a day of fasting and prayer for the end of abortion. We ask all our members to call upon God to end the slaughter of the innocent and grant repentance to the Church and our nation.

This would be a good day to read our recent statement, Abortion and the Church if you have not done so already.

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” James 5:16b

We give thanks to God for His kindness that led our Supreme Court to strike down (PDF) Roe v. Wade yesterday. Praise God!

In His providence, God led Sovereign King Church, and pastor Spurgeon specifically, to push our presbytery to produce a statement on abortion. The work began last year, and no one would have guessed at the time that we would be able to release the work to the public the day after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But here we are! God is kind.

Abortion and the Church can be read online here. You’ll find a link at that site to download the document as a printable PDF.

Please share it far and wide.

The 9th Stated Meeting of Evangel Presbytery met at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina on Thursday, June 2nd, 2022 at 9 am. We opened with a worship service and communion. Pastor Tim Bayly preached on Acts 20, Paul’s farewell to the Ephesian Elders. This was a timely text as Pr. Bayly will be retiring as senior pastor in Bloomington soon. He will be missed by all.

Our order of business began with a few reports from committees, the one of most anticipation being the Statement on Abortion. This statement has been in the works since October 2021, and quickly turned into something more akin to a book. Elders were given draft copies prior to the meeting to be prepared to discuss the work. It is evident that the research done has been massive and will shed much light on not just the epidemic of surgical abortions, but chemical as well. Since our last stated meeting in February a major Supreme Court opinion drafted by Justice Alito was leaked to the public. This was providential to say the least. The possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned is far higher now than ever and this has fueled the work on the statement all the more. Because of this the committee proposed to release the statement on Warhorn Media in conjunction with the ruling of the Dobbs decision (expected late June or early July). This allows the statement to be completed and released before the next stated presbytery meeting. This passed, so please continue to pray for the committee as they finish their work in the coming weeks!

In relation to this issue, Pr. Joseph Spurgeon of Sovereign King Church moved to have an annual day of fasting and prayer on the issue of abortion. This passed as well. We must not overlook these spiritual works. God does listen to His people, so please pray and fast as we plead for the lives of the unborn.

After a pulled pork and mac n’ cheese lunch we continued our business by hearing from our churches and praying for them. There is much growth happening in many of our churches which means a need for more workers. 

We then heard from two New Geneva Academy students who were offered to come under care. Timothy Deaton of Clearnote Church, Indianapolis, and Sion Han of Trinity Reformed Church, Bloomington both gave their testimonies and feeling of call to ministry. The presbytery unanimously voted for both being taken under care.

After finishing business, we adjourned with prayer. A big thank you to all who made the trip down to South Carolina! It was a blessed time.

Evangel’s next stated meeting will be at Trinity Reformed Church, in Bloomington, IN on Friday October 7th, 2022. The 2022 NGA Shepherds Conference will be held at the same location from October 5-6th. Hope to see you at both!

The 7th Stated Meeting of Evangel Presbytery met at Clearnote Church in Indianapolis, IN on February 18th, 2022. We began with our worship service at 9am with Pr. Paul Belcher preaching from Joshua 14:1-15. His exhortation centered on the life of Caleb and his faithfulness to enter the Promised Land.

After the Lord’s Supper our business portion of the meeting began starting with an exciting report about our statement on abortion. Last presbytery meeting, Sovereign King Church proposed that a committee study abortion with the purpose of adopting a statement. That committee has been working hard, and the current draft could easily be a book! No rock has been unturned and we have great hope that the final statement will be useful to all as a tool for repentance and true, righteous living.

After this, a report was given regarding the status of a handbook for session clerks. This handbook will be a great help to all future session clerks, bringing clarity and efficiency to their roles. The handbook will hopefully be completed by next presbytery.

Next we had updates from our churches and church plants. There is much to pray for, especially for the churches who have had sickness and death in recent weeks. This is always a sweet time full of encouragement despite the hardships that we are facing.

We then broke for a great lunch and warm fellowship. The peanut butter cookies were definitely the highlight.

Following lunch, we continued updates from our church plants and an update from Pr. Andrew Dionne on New Geneva Academy. NGA is doing well financially but is looking for more students. They are currently marketing at smaller conferences in hopes of connecting with eligible men and pastors.

After these reports, requests for approval for pastoral calls were granted. Alex McNeilly and Paul Belcher will serve as assistant pastors at recently particularized Christ Church, Cincinnati. After many years of faithful service Pr. Tim Bayly will resign as senior pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, and Jody Killingsworth will serve as senior pastor in his place.

A few remaining business decisions were handled regarding the BCO before finishing the day.

Our next stated meeting will be on Thursday June 2nd, 2022 at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Spartanburg, SC. We hope to see you there!

Evangel Presbytery met on Friday, October 8^th, 2021 at Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana. Our meeting started at 9 am with worship and prayer, followed by a sermon from Pastor Joseph Bayly. Pastor Bayly preached from 1 Kings 1:1-10 and warned us of the sins of pride and ambition. If we are to be wise, we must not only be able to see these sins in ourselves and others, but we must kill them. This was a needed exhortation as all men are prone to such errors. 

Changes to our BCO were discussed and voted on, followed by two written reports from men laboring out-of-bounds, Brian Bunn and Jürgen von Hagen.

Two overtures (petitions from churches to the presbytery) were then presented, both regarding major issues that all Christians must face: 

1. Pastor Joseph Spurgeon proposed that a committee be formed to study abortion with the purpose of drafting and adopting a statement about it. 
2. Pastor Lucas Weeks presented a statement that had been adopted by Trinity Reformed Church on September 19, 2021 titled Conscience and Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates: In Defense of Sphere Authority. The statement was adopted by Evangel Presbytery and can be read here. We encourage you to do so!

Following a budget proposal, we heard updates from our churches and mission churches. Even though these updates often include struggles and disappointments, it is always an encouraging portion of the meeting, for we see God’s kindness and mercy to his people. It is a truly sweet time to hear from our pastors. 

During this time, we had an exciting announcement: Christ Church Cincinnati asked to be particularized! Here is a brief history of Christ Church from Pr. Alex McNeilly: 

The church was planted under the leadership of pastors Joseph Bayly (senior) and Paul Belcher (assistant) in 2015, along with the help of several others. Alex McNeilly joined as an assistant pastor in September 2019. On September 12, 2021, the congregation elected two elders (Ken Patrick and Tom Thistleton) and two deacons (Rob Bedinghaus and Scott Hillger), called Joseph Bayly to serve as their senior pastor, and signed a petition to Evangel Presbytery to be organized as a particular church. The newly elected officers will be ordained and installed at an organization service on Sunday, October 31. For several years, the church met in an elementary school in Milford, Ohio, a suburb on the east side of Cincinnati. The church now meets for worship in the gym at Mars Hill Academy in Mason, Ohio, a suburb northeast of Cincinnati. The congregation has steadily grown over the past six years so that it now comprises roughly sixteen households, including families with (many) children as well as single adults.

We praise God for his kindness to us in this!

Following this announcement, we had a great lunch and time of fellowship at the church before reconvening. 

After lunch, the Candidates and Credentials committee brought some recent exceptions to the Westminster Confession of Faith to the floor of presbytery for discussion.

After hearing from our Sessional Records Committee our meeting ended (earlier than expected, which is always nice as there is more time for fellowship!). 

This meeting was preceded by our annual Shepherd’s Conference. The theme was The Good Soldier. The sessions were full of exhortation and encouragement, with much needed fellowship (and food) in between! 

Our next stated meeting will be on Friday, February 18^th, 2022 at Clearnote Church in Indianapolis. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sovereign King Church began in 2016 as a church plant meeting in the basement of a home in Southern Indiana. It was around that time that I had met a few men and their families doing evangelism work at the abortion mill in Louisville, Kentucky. With a mutual love for Christ, reformed theology, preaching the gospel in the open air, and speaking up for the preborn, we saw a need for a reformed church in Southern Indiana. The church initially started with an affiliation with another church in the area, but two problems became apparent. First, there was not much of an appetite for reformed preaching with application to the real sins of the people in the congregation. Second, we realized that the church did not have a good way of dealing with conflict among their elders. We had a sense that churches should be interconnected and have accountability outside of the local congregation, and so we began to consider a presbyterian style of government. We came to the conviction that presbyterianism provides protection for both the sheep and the shepherds of those sheep.

Having already established relationships with some of the men who would eventually make up Evangel Presbytery, we were able to seek shelter and care with accountability as we planted Sovereign King Church. I was accepted as an ordained church planter by Evangel Presbytery in 2019 when it was founded. With the help of a provisional elder board made up of pastors and elders from the Presbytery, the work of planting continued.

The Lord has been kind to us in many ways, small and large. One sweet story is about how we found a new location after outgrowing the basement where we were meeting:

Every year at Christmas, the church goes caroling throughout the nearby neighborhoods. One evening we knocked on the door of a woman whose entire family was sick and feeling pretty miserable. We sang Joy to the World when she opened the door, and tears filled her eyes as she filmed us using her phone. After we left, she shared the video on Facebook saying that she had been very discouraged until we had come. A local hairdresser saw the video on Facebook and recognized one of the women of our church. The next time she went to have her hair done, she and the hairdresser talked about the video, the gospel, and about how the church had outgrown the basement. The hairdresser knew just the right place for our church and put in a good word for us. We were meeting there soon after. There are many of these little stories of God’s provision and blessing on our church as we have worked to take the gospel into the culture.

God has blessed us since with growth in numbers and in fellowship. Being a part of Evangel Presbytery has been invaluable in adding a focus on pastoral care to our heart for abortion ministry and evangelism. Evangel Presbytery is known for its unity on the issue of baptism and its strong adherence to biblical patriarchy, but it is pastoral care that holds it all together. God gave the church shepherds to care for the souls of their sheep. Pastors must speak the things fitting for sound doctrine and do so with authority. They keep sheep out of ditches, pointing sinners to Christ who is the only one who can heal them. They equip the saints for ministry, leading them out into battle against the world, the devil, and the flesh. It is a good work that must be recovered.

In 2020-21, God had us outgrow the community building and provided a larger place. Two capable men in the congregation, Mark Cox and Aaron Sabie, both completed their training to serve as elders. On April 11th, 2021, Sovereign King Church ordained these two men and formally joined Evangel Presbytery as a particularized church. We are thankful for the work of Evangel Presbytery and are looking forward to working together to proclaim the good news of our Sovereign King, Jesus.