Aurora congregation wants
to leave PCUSA, join EPC
By John H. Adams, The Layman, May 21, 2009
Related story: Blackhawk exec says church will be dismissed
First Presbyterian Church in Aurora, Ill., has begun the process of formally seeking to be dismissed by the Blackhawk Presbytery to affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The presbytery has named an administrative commission with broad powers to negotiate with the 847-member congregation. The Rev. Jeffrey Moore, pastor of the church, said he was pleased with the four ministers and three ruling elders who have been named to the commission and expressed confidence that they would be fair. “They have been my colleagues and I know most of them,” he said.
On April 5, after hearing presbytery representatives and members and leaders of the church speak, the congregation voted 317-17 (95 percent) to request dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA). Before the vote, the presbytery monitored the church’s actions through an ad hoc committee that became the administrative commission later.
The Aurora congregation is the second to ask the presbytery to dismiss it to the EPC. The first, Kishwaukee Presbyterian Church, gained its dismissal in 2007.
Moore said the administrative commission has not set a date for its first meeting with the leaders of First Presbyterian, but he hopes it will be soon. He would not venture a guess about what the presbytery might require as a financial settlement.
But he did express appreciation for a covenant the presbytery proposed for the negotiations, expressing the goal of “having the love of Christ prevail.”
He emphasized that for his own congregation. “For those of us who do stand for the truth of Scripture,” he said, “there is always the temptation to become puffed up and self-righteous.” Even with a 95 percent vote, he added, there is no cause to be “prideful or arrogant.”
While seeking a congenial negotiation process, the leadership of the Aurora congregation has been clear in its concerns about the direction of the denomination.
The session said, “The foundation of the Word of God has been compromised by the understanding that Scripture contains the Word of God, but is itself not the Word of God. How do we work together in mission if we do not agree on the foundation, or that the foundation is even the problem?
“Your session has endeavored to risk everything to be aligned with a denomination that clearly and unreservedly declares its dependence upon and strident submission to the infallible Word of God, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.”
Blackhawk Presbytery is the home presbytery of Mark Tammen, associate stated clerk and a constitutional lawyer for the denomination. He was among the group that produced the “Louisville Papers,” documents that outlined draconian measures that presbyteries should employ to gain the property of departing congregations or negotiate sizable financial settlements.