Three Fla. congregations decide not to pay per capita
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, December 22, 2003
Two congregations in the Presbytery of Peace River, which stretches along the west coast of Florida, have notified the presbytery that they will not remit 2004 per-capita requests to support the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The congregations are the 1,900-member Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers and the 677-member First Presbyterian Church in Bradenton.
The session of a third congregation, the 1,212-member First Presbyterian Church in Naples, has notified the presbytery that it has begun escrowing its per-capita support for the presbytery, synod and General Assembly pending the presbytery’s response to the decisions by the sessions at Fort Myers and Bradenton.
The Rev. Kirt Anderson of Naples said neither he nor his elders collaborated with the leaders of the other two congregations, but that they were upset by the initial response of the presbytery. Additionally, Anderson said, the Naples session was concerned about some of the decisions and actions by the denomination’s elected and staff leaders.
The presbytery had warned the Fort Myers and Bradenton sessions that, by advocating nonpayment of per capita, they would be violating their ordination vows — an offense that can lead to loss of ordination and ouster from the PCUSA, Anderson said.
The authority for such a threat came from Clifton Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the PCUSA. In a letter to stated clerks and executives of presbyteries and synods in January 2002, Kirkpatrick warned that church officers who advocated withholding or redirecting per-capita requests were violating the denomination’s constitution. But the denomination’s highest courts and several general assemblies have said payment of per-capita apportionments is voluntary and that sessions can neither be compelled to pay per capita nor punished for failure to do so.
In a more recent statement, titled “Advisory Opinion No. 9,” Kirkpatrick no longer repeats his threat.
Likewise, Anderson said the presbytery had backed off its threat as well.
The Bradenton session has also notified the presbytery that it will not remit per-capita requests to support all three higher governing bodies: the presbytery, the synod and the General Assembly. The Naples congregation is escrowing its per-capita apportionments for all three as well. Covenant Presbyterian Church is withholding the per capita that supports the General Assembly.
Of the three congregations, only the Bradenton church is affiliated with the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA). But the other two have a “similar” evangelical spirit and commitment to the historic Reformed understanding of the Christian faith, one minister told The Layman Online.
Combined, the three congregations would withhold or redirect nearly $21,000 from the denomination’s $14-million per-capita budget, based on the 2004 General Assembly per-capita rate of $5.51 per church member. That amount alone nearly matches the $23,000 that was not collected by the denomination in 2001.
The per-capita shortfall for the General Assembly rose to $206,378 in 2002, when 42 of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries fell short in meeting the denomination’s requests. Denomination budget-makers have projected a shortfall of $425,000 for the year ending Dec. 31, 2003.
The Presbytery of Peace River has announced plans to try to dissuade the sessions from their decisions.
Graham Hart, the executive for the presbytery, told The Layman Online that “ministry action” teams will be sent to the three sessions soon after the first of the year to urge them to change their minds.
One of the issues that will be discussed will be whether the presbytery might continue its policy of making up the difference for congregations that are unable or unwilling to remit their full per capita, he said.
Presbyteries, which collect per-capita payments from local governing bodies to support all three higher governing bodies, are required to remit the full amounts sought by the denomination as long as funds are available.
Hart said the sessions have given different reasons for deciding not to pay their per-capita apportionments, ranging from a concern over the denomination’s Christology to a array of issues such as those that were outlined in the November issue of The Layman.
That edition highlighted the Presbyterian Lay Committee’s “Declaration of Conscience,” which called on Presbyterians to “prayerfully consider” targeting their gifts to ministries that focus on Jesus Christ and are grounded in Scripture.
Hart said there was no apparent connection between the actions taken by the three sessions.
David Swanson is the pastor at Fort Myers and Ken Sinclair is the pastor at Bradenton.
Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers is a fast-growing congregation whose membership has increased from nearly 1,200 in 1992 to nearly 1,900 currently. Its average annual gift per member in 2002 was $1,050, nearly 40 percent higher than the denomination’s average.
The congregation supports 13 missions around the globe, including Wycliffe Bible Translators. It has a strong, orthodox statement of beliefs and requires its officers to subscribe (actually sign) a statement accepting their willingness to live according to Biblical standards.
At the end of its statement of beliefs, Covenant Presbyterian Church includes a disclaimer: “Beliefs stated on the Presbyterian Church (USA) Web site do not necessarily express the beliefs or covenant of any other local Presbyterian church.”
Swanson is completing his fourth year as Covenant’s senior pastor. For eight years, he was associate pastor at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga, one of the denomination’s strongest evangelical churches.
Swanson received his master of divinity degree from Austin Theological Seminary and his doctor of ministry degree from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. He directs the Christian Life Conference at the denomination’s Montreat Center in Black Mountain, N.C., each summer and is a regular speaker at Presbyterians For Renewal conferences.
Anderson, who grew up in Southern California and was involved in the evangelical Young Life as a youth, has been the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Naples since September 2000. Since 1992, the congregation lost more than 400 members during a period of turmoil that preceded Anderson’s arrival. But the congregation has begun to grow and the average annual gift per member remains high — $1,081, which is roughly 40 percent higher than the average gift across the 2.45-million-member PCUSA.
First Presbyterian Church in Bradenton, one of 50 Confessing Churches in Florida, has grown by 72 members since 1996. Giving by its members was an average of $1,081 in 2002.