Second Illinois church plans congregational vote June 24 on seeking dismissal from the PCUSA
By Patrick Jean, June 22, 2007
Citing more than 30 years of growing dissatisfaction with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and one of its predecessor denominations, Kishwaukee Community Presbyterian Church in Stillman Valley, Ill., has scheduled a congregational vote June 24 on whether to request dismissal from the PCUSA.
The church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Eric Geil, expects an overwhelming majority of the 407-member congregation to vote for the dismissal request. An anonymous congregational straw poll taken at a recent town hall-style congregational meeting to discuss dismissal asked whether:
- To stay in the PCUSA and fight for renewal.
- To leave the PCUSA and join the smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
- Or to say, “I have no opinion and will support the majority.”
Of the 261 in attendance who voted, 259 favored joining the EPC, Geil said. “The two that said they wanted to stay, in discussions they came forward and let us know who they were even though it was anonymous,” he said. “They said it was just because they were afraid of losing the property.”
Kishwaukee is the second Illinois congregation in the PCUSA with a dismissal vote scheduled June 24. First Presbyterian Church in Quincy is the other.
Geil said his church already has held talks with a “response team” from Blackhawk Presbytery about the pending dismissal request. He expects discussions to turn to the property issue after the congregational vote.
In exchange for being dismissed with its property, the church has made a $50,000 “friendship offering” that represents five years of per-capita payments to the presbytery, Geil said. Presbytery trustees will discuss the offer, he said, after the Kishwaukee Church congregation votes and the presbytery addresses the vote. The presbytery’s next stated meeting is July 10.
“Friendships have been developed over the years within the presbytery, and we’re planning on continuing to be in ministry with these friends here,” Geil said. “It’s not like we’re, all of a sudden, not going to speak again or anything like that.”
217th General Assembly was last straw
Geil said the last straw for his church with the PCUSA was two actions taken last summer by the 217th General Assembly:
- 1. Approval of the report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity that keeps the current ordination standards in the PCUSA’s Constitution, but allows those who choose not to obey them to declare them to be non-essential.
- 2. Receiving a paper on the Trinity that proposes both the Biblical tradition for the names of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as well as a number of alternatives never linked in Scripture as Trinitarian language.
“What we saw was that our efforts over the years – through Presbyterians for Renewal, through Presbyterians Pro-Life, through our involvement with the Confessing Church Movement – we just felt like our efforts weren’t really bearing fruit at all,” he said. “And so it was time to start asking the question of our leadership and of the congregation: ‘Is it time to move on to a denomination that we felt more theologically at home with?'”
But the church’s problems with a denomination predate the PCUSA. Geil, who has led the church for 1½ years, recalled an e-mail he received from a former pastor at Kishwaukee Church that discussed issues his church was having with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in the mid-1970s.
For Geil, the current problems run deeper than the Trinity paper and the PUP report. “For me, I’ve seen a continual drift by the national denomination away from Scripture and away from Jesus Christ,” he said. “It takes so many different forms that it’s almost exhausting trying to keep up with the latest. This has, for me, been going on for years.”
“What has occurred here, being the pastor of a congregation, we’re really in sync with the main reason the church exists: to reach the lost for Jesus. And the other stuff is secondary to that,” he said. “If we’re not doing that – if we’re not proclaiming a Gospel that’s different from the secular humanist society that we’re surrounded by – then what’s the point of being? What I’ve seen is a shift by the national leadership and the national denomination away from the authority of God’s Word and who Jesus Christ is.”
Geil also takes issue with “the lack of any sort of church discipline on leaders and pastors who make statements that are definitely un-Biblical. That’s one of the marks of the church, is church discipline,” he said. “It seems like that doesn’t happen when folks make strongly theologically incorrect statements and proclamations.”
The process leading to Kishwaukee Church’s dismissal request vote began last July right after the Birmingham General Assembly with a need for prayer and dialogue, Geil said. “A lot of work went into discerning where the congregation was,” he said. “We have conducted six town hall-style meetings for the congregation that were open to anybody – member, visitor, whoever wanted to be there.”
The session made its recommendation for a congregational vote last month.
Why EPC, New Wineskins?
Kishwaukee Church is a member of the New Wineskins Association of Churches, a conservative movement that has asked for the establishment of a transitional, non-geographic presbytery to receive groups of churches into membership in the EPC. Commissioners in that denomination are scheduled to vote at its June 20-23 general assembly on a proposal to authorize the establishment of transitional, non-geographic presbyteries to receive groups of churches into membership.
Geil said discussions with friends from Princeton Theological Seminary and coverage of the New Wineskins in The Layman Online led him to talk about the conservative movement with his church’s elders. He attended the group’s convocation in Tulsa, Okla., last summer, and he and seven elders attended its convocation in Orlando, Fla., in February.
“What most drew us to [New] Wineskins was like-minded churches looking to honor Jesus Christ,” he said. “The confessional is such a hot-button phrase right now – I think it’s thrown around way too much, to be honest – but the fact that they had an outward focus and the fact that they were able to say, ‘Here’s what we believe. Here are our essential tenets of the faith. These are non-debatable. These are essential to being a follower of Christ, and we can actually say them.’ Which is what we missed in our current denomination – the inability to say that, I think, is huge in the PCUSA.”
Geil said his church would join the proposed New Wineskins Presbytery.
When discussions with the EPC began, “We just saw what a natural marriage that really is,” Geil said. “I think the quote was, ‘We felt like we were long-lost cousins, first cousins who were finally able to meet each other. And we had so much in common.'”
“So we started looking at the EPC then more in-depth because we felt like it was wise that, if we’re wanting to explore going to join this denomination, then we need to know more about it,” Geil said.
They found that the EPC tenets covered reaching out to the lost for Jesus and were “exactly what Kishwaukee stands for, has stood for and will continue to stand for,” he said.
Not trying to change minds
The church has had discussions with a Blackhawk Presbytery response team consisting of the general presbyter, the Rev. Dr. John E. Rickard, and members of the committee on ministry. Rickard came to the church June 12 with a committee on ministry co-chairman and spoke with the session and elders, Geil said.
Rickard “really respectfully accepted where we’re at,” Geil said. “He said, ‘Clearly, we’re not here to try to change your minds. We want to hear where you’re at, and the history here, so that we can work on this together.'”
Rickard also addressed the congregation June 17 at the church’s final town hall-style meeting on dismissal. With more than 200 people in attendance, “He did a great job once again, saying, ‘I’m not here to try to change anyone’s mind. We, the presbytery, just need to do our homework as well and find out is there anyone who wants to stay,'” Geil said.
Rickard will speak to the congregation again June 24 before the vote is taken. He said he plans to express his unhappiness that it has come to this.
“Other than sadness, I’m sorry that the conversation is happening,” Rickard said. “I don’t know that it’s a necessary conversation – they do. So, it’s sad and disappointing.”
Geil praised Rickard’s response so far. “John has gone out of his way to work with us, to settle this in a way that honors the Lord,” he said. “John has really stepped up to the plate on that, and we’re just really thankful for him and his desire to see this through in a way that honors Christ. He’s been great.”
“We’ve been able to hear each other,” Rickard said. “They’ve expressed their concerns, and I think they’ve heard presbytery’s concerns and interests. So, to that extent, they’ve been good. I wish we weren’t having the conversation.”
What’s next?
The Kishwaukee Church congregation’s vote total on the dismissal request will be announced at Blackhawk Presbytery’s July 10 meeting. “Personally, I hear the concerns,” Rickard said. “I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I hear them. I expect people to vote their conscience and their true desires, and we’ll know at the other end what direction we may be going.”
The presbytery’s response and discussions with the church will become more formalized after that meeting, Rickard said. “We’ll receive whatever happens at our July 10 meeting,” he said. “And until we know what the vote is, I don’t know that we know how we’re going to respond.”
Geil said he hopes the presbytery will have a “mutually acceptable” proposal for dealing with all matters regarding his church – dismissal, property, etc. – by this fall. The presbytery’s next stated meeting after July is Sept. 11.
Kishwaukee Church’s June 24 vote also will ask the congregation whether the pastor should seek dismissal from the PCUSA. Geil plans to seek ordination in the EPC.
Joining the EPC will continue a relationship with the Presbyterian faith for the church that dates back 78 years. Kishwaukee Church was with the Wesleyan denomination from its founding in 1844 until 1929, Geil said.
“Our desire through this is that Jesus is glorified, that we’re not a stumbling block for non-believers, and that this really ends in a way that allows us to move on to a denomination with a better theological fit,” Geil said, adding that he doesn’t want this dismissal request to “turn into what a lot of them have turned into.”
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@www.layman.org.