Note: This article distinguishes pastor and minister. Minister is any teaching elder, while pastor is a teaching elder currently installed in a particular congregation.

What happens at your church when your pastor is away? Today, the RPCNA is blessed to have pastors in the large majority of its congregations and to have numerous ministers serving non-pastoral roles, but this was not always the case. Before the 20th Century, there were typically many more congregations than ministers, and a large share of congregations were always vacant.

When the early Reformed Presbyterians left the Church of Scotland in the late 17th Century, they had a few ministers, but all soon rejoined the Church of Scotland. Since there were no ministers to lead regular worship services, members formed a network of “societies,” small groups that met in homes each week to pray, read the Bible, and sing. In many ways, these societies were congregationalist: without elders to form sessions or a presbytery, each society’s members admitted new members and disciplined dissidents. They sent representatives to a General Meeting for all of Scotland, but this largely served as a way for the societies to coordinate their beliefs and positions; it was more like a Baptist convention than a presbytery.

A single minister, John McMillan, joined the “United Societies” in 1706, giving them a minister after 16 years without any. He and an unordained preacher traveled throughout the parts of Scotland where members lived, preaching and celebrating the sacraments. However, except for the few times per year when these men could visit a particular society, its members’ worship remained unchanged unless they could travel to hear preaching elsewhere.

Once a presbytery was formed in 1743, more ministers could be ordained. These new ministers were appointed to serve collections of congregations, which were now regularly established with sessions. This made regular services much more frequent, but congregations still would have traditional society-style worship on most weeks.

Aside from a Presbyterian minister who briefly embraced RP positions, the first RP minister in America was John Cuthbertson, who arrived in 1751. RPs had been settling in the colonies for decades, including some ruling elders, and they formed new societies much like those they had left behind in Europe. Cuthbertson followed McMillan’s example, constantly traveling from society to society. Over nearly 40 years in the ministry, Cuthbertson rode 70,000 miles to serve societies from New Hampshire to Virginia. More ministers arrived from Europe in the 1770s, but like in Scotland, there were too many societies for most to receive preaching frequently, and the vast distances between societies meant that it wasn’t often practical for members to visit other societies.

In the late 1790s, political turmoil in Ireland forced many RPs (including some ministers and theological students) to flee to the United States. Before this time, most societies were composed of farmers, but many of the new arrivals settled in the East Coast cities. As these societies grew into full-size congregations, they needed more constant preaching, and, as more men were ordained, the church could spare men to serve as pastors of individual congregations. By 1822, there were 23 ministers to serve 43 congregations—a great improvement from 50 years earlier, but still far too few.

The traditional model of a minister traveling from society to society long endured in rural areas. This was particularly common on the Western frontier, where members scattered much faster than ministers could reach them. Even in the East, the model survived in isolated areas. As late as 1871, the Rev. T. M. Elder was serving a congregation of six societies across several counties of western Pennsylvania. Each one had its own meeting location, including several church buildings, and worship services were held separately until the Bear Run and Mahoning societies closed after 1970.

Pastor-served congregations were common throughout America by 1900, but many congregations remained vacant. The minister/congregation ratio improved from 91/104 to 124/103 between 1872 and 1922, but more men were retired or serving as professors, and denominational shrinkage meant that many congregations were too small to support a pastor. The denomination’s focus on political activity required pastors to speak elsewhere several times per year, so even those congregations with pastors needed to go without preaching periodically.

Around 1980, the RPCNA adopted a two-office position, concluding that ruling elders held the same office as ministers and could lead services. This differed from the old three-office position that considered ministers a separate office from ruling elders. Today, many ruling elders serve roles in worship services, and some trained ruling elders preach periodically. Consequently, few congregations need to go without regular services.

Developments in acoustics and sound recording have allowed congregations to use recorded sermons—tapes in the 1990s, SermonAudio in the 2020s—when a pastor is away, and today’s transportation makes it easier for a congregation to bring a visiting preacher from elsewhere. We are truly blessed!