Huntersville Presbyterian Church in North Carolina has been granted dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has affiliated itself with ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
During the Feb. 16 meeting of the Presbytery of Charlotte, Huntersville PC was dismissed graciously, ending a 17-month process to sever its ties with the PCUSA.
This was not a process entered into lightly by the congregation with its pastor Vern Dodd (now retired) and more recently with interim pastor Bill Katibah. Over the past several years, church leaders and members focused on two key issues. First, that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church and that salvation is given by the grace of God through Jesus in His death and resurrection. Second, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the only rule of faith and practice in building relationships with Jesus and other believers in community. Related to this was the need for well-defined Biblical standards for ordination. Erosion of these two main issues within the denomination led the session, in September 2011, to enter a Process of Reconciliation with the Presbytery of Charlotte.
“God demands patience,” HPC Clerk of Session Sue Black said. “He’s on His time purposefully. Working in His time, with prayer and Scripture reading, you come up with a plan that defines His will and works for your church.”
Huntersville Presbyterian Church (HPC) is located in uptown Huntersville, just north of Charlotte adjacent to Interstate 77. It is affectionately referred to as “The Patch” since the original idea of forming it came while members of neighboring churches were picking blackberries on the property and determined this would be the ideal location for a Presbyterian church. Established in 1878, the church’s vision statement is “To take Jesus as He is to people as they are from the heart of Huntersville.”
In May 2012 the session of HPC affirmed a unanimous recommendation from the Discernment Team, which was made up of both presbytery and HPC members. The recommendation was that the congregation no longer was called to work together in a covenant relationship with the PCUSA and Presbytery of Charlotte, thus recommending dismissal to another Reformed body.
Later that month, the session approved ECO as the recommended denominational home for Huntersville’s congregation.
Less than a month later, in June 2012, 285 of the 460 active members of HPC cast ballots in a congregational vote to affiliate with ECO. Nearly 82 percent (233) of those voting were in favor of the move to ECO.
“God has to lead us where He wants to lead us,” Black said. “We felt God was leading us to a denomination that was interested in taking Jesus, spreading the Gospel and starting new churches, to be more involved in our community of faith.”
Black said the belief in basic tenets at theological standards was a draw to ECO.
“The confessions of the old denomination did not change, but the practices did in some congregations,” she said. “The statements of behavior need to be understood up front. The statements of theology need to be understood up front. In ECO, we can be clear about what we believe and what we expect from our church members, pastors and lay leaders.
From July 2012 until January 2013, the presbytery-appointed Administrative Commission (AC) worked closely with the HPC session to define terms of the gracious dismissal, including a financial settlement.
Under the terms agreed to, HPC will pay the Presbytery of Charlotte $21,600 for five years. That amount was reached by taking an average of the church’s giving from 2007-2011.
During a Jan. 13 congregational meeting, 291 of 441 active members were present for the vote on the settlement terms, and 97 percent (281) voted to accept the proposal, leading to the presbytery’s vote of dismissal a little more than a month later.
Black said the presbytery’s representatives on the discernment team and Administrative Commission were gracious throughout the dismissal process, working closely with the HPC congregation to make the transition to a new denominational home as smooth as possible.
With the dismissal process a thing of the past, Black said the members of Huntersville Presbyterian Church are looking to the future and their service to God.
“In ECO we have a commitment to a historic Reformed faith that seeks to make vibrant disciples of Jesus Christ,” Black said. “When you make a big decision like this as a church, you ask if you have followed your will or His. God has blessed us in the past, and He continues to overwhelm us with His tender mercies as we continue to seek to honor Him in faithful ministry.”
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For some 3-4 years now I have been bothered by the “payoff” made by departing congregations to their previous presbyteries. Yet I was never able to clearly identify my gut reaction and why, until the past few weeks.
I understand how each presbytery can hold the congregation hostage to such a payoff in order for the local church to retain use of their building and land. I also understand how presbyteries depend on the financial contributions of each member church in order to meet their budgets from year to year. But, doesn’t such behavior turn a “partner in mission and ministry” into nothing more than a source of revenue?
As an analogy, let’s consider a particular congregation as a member of a particular presbytery the same as a particular church member a part of a local church. When the member leaves the congregation (and their could be a variety of reasons from death, to job relocation, to retirement, to theological, political, or social disagreements), the session does not say to the member (or the heirs in the case of death), “we will not release your membership to another church until you contribute 5 years worth of financial support.”
Of course the session can’t, nor should it attempt such a response! So why are we allowing presbyteries and their Administrative Commissions to get away with such poor manners?
The “payoff” systems seems to have been accepted as the “gold standard” by which PC(USA) congregations are transferred to other reformed bodies. But is it really a gracious response which promotes the peace, unity, and purity in the Body of Christ?