Louisiana church seeking dismissal from PCUSA votes to disaffiliate after synod’s action
By Patrick Jean, Staff Writer The Layman Online, May 7, 2008
The Synod of the Sun’s appointment of an administrative commission for the Presbytery of South Louisiana has prompted one church, which was seeking the presbytery’s approval to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA), to immediately leave the denomination.
Forty-seven of the 91 voting members of First Presbyterian Church in Thibodaux, La., were in attendance May 4, said the church’s pastor, the Rev. Bill Crawford. They acted on recommendations by the church’s session that included terminating the church’s “voluntary affiliation with” the PCUSA and petitioning the EPC “for voluntary affiliation and membership therein.”
All 47 members voted unanimously by ballot to have the church leave the PCUSA and by voice to seek EPC membership, Crawford said.
“In a small church like ours, we were very concerned that we have a very large plurality of the voting members,” he said. “To be honest, we had no idea that we could expect a unanimous vote, and we were just thrilled. We feel like that shows our unity as a church very clearly. I don’t think there can be any question about the will of this congregation.
“There may have been other churches that have had that level of a vote, but I’ve not heard of one,” Crawford said. “I have to watch taking pride in that, but it’s just nice. It’s so reassuring and so exciting to look at that group of people and think, ‘Man, on this issue at least, we are clearly on the same page.'”
The church was received into the EPC the next day and assigned to the New Wineskins transitional presbytery, said the Rev. Bill Meyer of Clearwater, Fla., chairman of the denomination’s Joint Commission on the New Wineskins-EPC Presbytery. Crawford said he also mailed to the presbytery office his renunciation of PCUSA jurisdiction and that he has been provisionally received into the EPC pending its receipt of a copy of that renunciation.
“Our congregation has been Presbyterian for 161 years,” Crawford said. “We see no reason to change that reality. We are only ending our 25-year affiliation with the PCUSA. What will change is our connection to a system in decay, a body that cannot clearly affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and our connection to an institution at war with itself.”
‘We had no other choice’
Crawford’s church was seeking dismissal from the PCUSA through South Louisiana Presbytery. But the Synod of the Sun’s vote to appoint an administrative commission for the presbytery forced the church’s hand, he said.
Crawford said he received notice April 21 that the presbytery council had received a letter from the synod stating that some clergy and elders in the presbytery had asked the synod to form an administrative commission and that the council was due to meet April 22. He called a church session meeting for April 23 to discuss his church’s options, and he also received notice from the presbytery council that a congregational meeting for his church’s dismissal request needed to be scheduled; that was set for May 11.
“Being aware that the synod was meeting that weekend, and that we needed to have two successive Sundays’ notice, we provisionally called (on April 27) a second congregational meeting for May 4,” Crawford said.
Synod members voted April 25 to appoint the administrative commission “to examine concerns regarding church property and presbytery leadership” in South Louisiana Presbytery, according to a synod news release. The 13-member commission “shall determine the validity of the presbytery’s procedures and decisions (past, present and future) regarding various congregations and their properties,” stated a document from the synod meeting, a copy of which was obtained by The Layman.
“Once we got word out of the synod on Friday (April 25), I immediately sent an e-mail to a constitutional expert: Can the presbytery still dismiss a congregation?” Crawford said. “His answer was no, that dismissal according to the denomination’s provision, is also a property issue. And since all property rights were put into the administrative commission, the presbytery could no longer dismiss us even if they voted to do so.
“The council had tentatively, pending our congregational vote, endorsed our dismissal for June 3,” he said. “So we were well along the track to dismissal. We wanted to honor that process. We wanted to pave the way for other churches who would use that track. But the synod, in its unprecedented move seizing jurisdiction over property matters – and the key words are ‘past, present and future’ – we just felt like we had no other choice but to make an immediate move.”
Synod Executive Judy Fletcher did not respond to a call and e-mail from The Layman seeking comment.
Tenant mentality is ‘greatest injustice’
The disaffiliation vote is the latest step in a process that began last summer, when Crawford’s church and another congregation, Woodland Presbyterian in New Orleans, sued the Presbytery of South Louisiana for judgments that they, and not the presbytery or the PCUSA, are the owners of their properties. In October 2007, the presbytery approved stipulated final judgments in the cases that declared each church the owner of its property, the presbytery reported in the November 2007 edition of its Leadership Letter newsletter.
While property wasn’t a factor in the disaffiliation vote, “it is certainly wonderful to not have to sweat the denomination that will treat us like a tenant and try and evict us from our property because we’re not paying rent anymore,” Crawford said. “I think I’ve beat that drum a few times, but that is something that has come to me as the greatest injustice that is going on is that a denomination would treat its churches as tenants. That is a nice little benefit to having clear title, is that they won’t come after our property.”
Crawford said he spoke with a presbytery officer before sending out a news release May 5 announcing the church’s action. “He and I talked for about 10-15 minutes. It was a fairly somber conversation, just notified him of the facts and just shared our continued concern for the presbytery – that this was not in any way meant to harm or hurt the people in our presbytery, but that the situation had changed and we had to move forward.
“At the (May 4) meeting, we lifted our presbytery in prayer,” Crawford said. “We intend to continue to have an ecumenical relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. As I reminded people throughout this process, ‘We’re not ceasing to be Christians, and we will continue to behave as such.’ We sure hope that our brothers and sisters within the PCUSA will do the same. We have many common ministries to undertake – disaster relief in particular.”
Church members also voted unanimously by voice May 4 to offer “prayers of thanksgiving and intercession on behalf of the Presbytery of South Louisiana” and ask the presbytery to “bless our congregation in the new future to which God has called us through approval of a petition to dismiss First Presbyterian Church of Thibodaux with our property and their blessing as soon as practicable.”
“We realize that Presbyterians being Presbyterians, that will upset people in the presbytery,” Crawford said of his church’s votes. “But we just didn’t have a choice. We really felt that we had to act.”
A presbytery official told The Layman that the presbytery was aware of the Thibodaux church’s votes, but would have no comment. The Rev. Dr. Alan D. Cutter, South Louisiana general presbyter, is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
Letting everyone know
Crawford said he received more than a dozen calls May 5 reacting to the previous day’s disaffiliation vote. “The church is just so happy. The people are thrilled to have moved on,” he said. “Many of us who are parents, myself included, are excited to not have our denomination sending mixed signals to our children. I had one member who moved recently, and is out of state, send me an e-mail. I won’t say what the praise was because it would be self-serving, but it just blessed my heart and touched me tremendously.
“I’ve had people call throughout the day to ask me if the synod has come in, or if anything’s happened, or if I’m OK,” Crawford said. “The reality of the threat of some kind of administrative commission coming in has been on their minds and hearts. It’s been nice all day to say, ‘Everything’s fine. We’re in the hands of a mighty God. Let’s just move on.'”
The church has begun informing its 44 other members who weren’t in attendance. An e-mail went out May 5 to those in the congregation on an e-mail list, and a letter was going out May 6 to members and regular church attendants.
“There were over 85 people at the meeting,” Crawford said. “We have a lot of people who attend our church who are not officially members yet. They were there. They were supportive. They intend to continue to come to our church. Many of them probably have not joined our church because of our denominational affiliation.
“A lot of people who are not life-long Presbyterians, who are not life-long Christians, we have a number of those people in our church,” he said. “Denominational affiliation is not important, other than that the denomination doesn’t get in the way of sharing Jesus Christ. There are a lot of younger people that just aren’t interested. ‘Do what you need to do. Just do your ministry.'”
Of the membership who did not attend, Crawford feels almost all of them would have voted for disaffiliation. “In a small church, you know your people very well,” he said. Two members would have had issues with the vote, he said: one who hasn’t attended in years, and another who has stopped attending and has been offered pastoral support such as transferring her church membership when she’s ready.
The May 4 meeting competed for attention with Thibodaux’s firefighter fair and parade on same day, plus one member was in the hospital and others were out of town as vacation season begins, Crawford said.
Crawford’s church seats 90, and he said attendance averages 60 to 70 each Sunday. “Forty percent of the church are here every week, and the other 60 percent take turns,” he joked.
What’s next?
Crawford said worshipers won’t notice any difference in his church’s operations, services or structure now that it’s in the EPC. “What will be dramatically different is that the 20 to 30 hours a month that I have spent dealing with denominational issues will now be more clearly spent working on evangelism and the mission of the church here in Thibodaux,” he said. “Our congregation and myself have a vision of outreach to the community, of planting house churches, of building networks with other like-minded churches.
“We had actually completed three-quarters of the grant work with the PCUSA, when all of this happened, to network five churches and begin a united ministry,” Crawford said.
“I’m very excited to return my energy to that work, find new partners – maybe in the EPC, or maybe with house churches, and begin to what I like to call ‘create a greater surface area’ for our ministry and the Gospel here in our area. We are very excited to get this behind us and to move on with our ministry.”
Crawford feels his church will grow along with his ministry. “This is a congregation that had 25 people in worship seven years ago” when he became pastor, he said. “On this Sunday, we had 85 people in worship. We have definitely seen a renewal.”
The news release announcing the church’s votes concluded with a Bible passage – Matthew 10:38-39, where Jesus says:
- “[A]nd anyone who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (New International Version)
Crawford said his congregation studied the Bible deeply across the board leading up to the disaffiliation vote, but Matthew 10:38-39 “was a verse that was very indicative of this step for us. There comes a point that no matter what cost, no matter what trouble comes with it, where you must just take up the cross and follow. The message to us was clear in that.
“I just pray that evangelicals who are staying in the PCUSA are deeply aware that I perceive the door to be closing to any future dismissal or disaffiliation,” he said. “They must really count the cost of their decision and then whatever they decide, do it and rejoice in the Lord and follow Him.”
About the parties
First Presbyterian Church of Thibodaux, La., was founded in 1847. It has 91 voting members. The Rev. Bill Crawford has been its pastor for seven years.
The Presbytery of South Louisiana has 63 churches totaling more than 9,500 members. Its headquarters is in Baton Rouge.
The Synod of the Sun comprises 11 presbyteries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. Its headquarters is in Irving, Texas.
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@layman.org.