The growth of the newest denomination in the Presbyterian family continues as ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians now has 215 congregations and more than 300 minister members.
According to the website, the newest additions to ECO include:
FPC Klamath Falls, Klamath Falls, OR
FPC Greenville, Greenville, PA
FPC San Angelo, San Angelo, TX
Water’s Edge Church, Manhattan Beach, CA
The Presbyterian Church at New Providence, New Providence, NJ
Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church, Liberty Corner, NJ
Peace Presbyterian Church, Pearland, TX
Six of the seven churches listed realigned their denominational affiliation from the Presbyterian Church (USA). Those six churches have a combined membership of 3172. The seventh church, Water’s Edge, is a new church plant.
But we all know that membership numbers don’t tell the whole story. So, if one of the indicators of health is that a congregation has lots of families with children and youth, then its worth taking a quick look at the ECO job board (which boasts more than 25 positions for children, youth and family staff opportunities).
Three years is not a lot to go on, but if ECO continues to add congregations at this rate, it is projected to be 500 churches strong (or roughly equivalent in size to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church) in four more years.
It is expected that ECO will continue to experience transfer growth (from the PCUSA) but that growth by church s-planting will be equally significant in the next 18 months. A church s-plant is a hybrid new church development that starts with a portion of an existing church splitting off to form an ECO congregation. This has happened in several places where the PCUSA presbytery chose to recognize a minority as the true church and the majority congregation left to form an ECO church plant in the same town.
But there is a third way that ECO is expected to grow, beyond transfer and church planting growth – and that is through the reception of independent congregations who might now be looking to collaborate with like-minded, innovative, theologically Reformed churches.
ECO’s interest in church planters “outside” the historic Presbyterian stream is evident in their sponsorship of the SPARK Conference – Exponential West.
This is one of the largest gatherings of church planting leaders in the world and ECO is offering hoping to attract those interested by offering a special ECO PROMO code: eco15w
ECO will hold its 2016 National Gathering January 26-28, 2016 at St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Cal.