Small congregation dismissed to EPC with property in exchange for $10,000 payment to presbytery
By Patrick Jean, August 3, 2007
GASTONIA, N.C. – A small congregation in the western North Carolina mountains has been granted its request to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Murphy Presbyterian Church also has received ownership of its property in exchange for a relatively small amount – $10,000 – to be paid to the Presbytery of Western North Carolina.
Presbytery commissioners voted at their stated meeting July 31 to let the Murphy church go to the smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. They later voted to give the church its property in exchange for a $2,000 payment each year for five years to the presbytery’s mission initiative.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Alan Wildsmith, was still elated the day after the vote.
“Praise God,” he said Aug. 1 in a phone interview. “We are very grateful to the task force and the committee on ministry. All along, they dealt with us as brothers and sisters in Christ and we very much felt that. And we still respect those who feel called to stay in the PCUSA, but God has led us to a different position.”
The number of votes received for being dismissed and for property ownership came as a pleasant surprise to Wildsmith, who has been Murphy’s pastor for all of his 24 years of ordination in the PCUSA.
“We praise God for that, and we are grateful that there are still a lot of people who are trying to look at this in a merciful way,” he said. “It’s painful for all concerned, but we’re trying to do this in as loving a manner as we can.”
‘Hey, it’s gone too far’
Wildsmith said the process that led to the Murphy church’s dismissal from the PCUSA began in July 2006, when church members discussed the 217th General Assembly’s approval a month earlier of the report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity that keeps the current ordination standards in the denomination’s constitution, but allows those who choose not to obey them to declare them to be non-essential. But he said his church’s serious differences with the PCUSA began about two years before the PUP report’s approval, citing issues such as the reduced authority of Scripture, the denomination’s stand on abortion and other actions by the General Assembly.
“This just seemed to us to be saying, ‘Hey, it’s gone too far,'” Wildsmith said.
The Murphy church’s session held meetings with EPC officials.
“What we really like about the EPC is its very firm, concise statement on the authority of Scripture, and on asking that its ministers and elders agree to the essentials of the faith. We saw that as being a real plus to us,” Wildsmith said.
“We also saw them as being open to women, and giving each congregation the freedom to not have to toe the party line – that as long as you agree on the essentials, you can disagree on non-essentials,” he said. “And so that very much appealed to us.”
Unlike other churches that have sought to leave the PCUSA for the EPC, the New Wineskins Association of Churches did not factor into the Murphy church’s decision, Wildsmith said. The church looked at the conservative organization, but decided it wanted to go with a denomination with a proven track record for now, he said.
The New Wineskins Association successfully petitioned the EPC for the establishment of a transitional, non-geographic presbytery to receive groups of churches into membership in that denomination. The 27th EPC General Assembly overwhelmingly voted June 22 for a plan to create non-geographic, transitional presbyteries to receive congregations seeking to join the denomination.
In December 2006, the Murphy church’s session recommended that the congregation vote for seeking dismissal from the PCUSA in order to join the EPC, Wildsmith said. The congregation’s first meeting about pursuing dismissal followed in January 2007, he said.
The congregation’s vote took place May 6, with 44 of the church’s 63 members in attendance, the pastor said. Of those, 37 voted to request dismissal from the PCUSA and seven voted against asking to leave, he said.
The church session met the following month with presbytery officials and representatives of a task force created to address the Murphy church’s request. Wildsmith characterized the meetings as “very good.”
“Our session felt like the task force heard us,” he said. “We felt like they very much tried to put forth what the presbytery was requesting. We had a good, frank discussion, so we felt very good about it.”
The short period from when the dismissal request was made to when it was approved did not come as a surprise to Wildsmith. He said task force representatives had said all along that they wanted the matter addressed at the presbytery’s stated meeting July 31.
The task force came up on its own with the $10,000 figure that it recommended the church pay to the presbytery in exchange for its property, Wildsmith said. Congregational giving dwindled over the past year and the church had to cut its budget by about 10 percent, he said.
The Murphy church shared that information with the task force and said it had nothing to spare for the presbytery, the pastor said. “We can’t offer anything,” he said. “We are making it, but we don’t have a lot of funds saved like other churches or other bequests or huge savings to draw upon. We told them that and they seemed to understand that.”
Wildsmith said he was “very pleased” with the task force’s financial resolution.
“We thought that was do-able, even in the face of $2,000 a year over the next five years,” he said. “If we can raise the funds to pay it off, that’s very reasonable. We thought they were being exceedingly gracious.”
The only monkey wrench, he said, came from the presbytery’s coordinating council. In a report included in the presbytery’s meeting docket, the panel urged the presbytery to postpone action on the task force’s recommendations “until further work can be done on the presbytery’s disposition of the property and the potential for PCUSA new church development in Murphy, with expectation of a report at the October 2007 (or at latest, the January 2008) meeting of the presbytery.”
The council argued that “it is important to have more information about the value and condition of the Murphy church property before accepting a recommendation that it be passed to the church members wishing to join another denomination.”
“We had not wanted it to drag on,” Wildsmith said. “The council’s action really did surprise us. We thought if they do want our property, we asked that they just go ahead and do so. We were willing to walk off if that’s what they requested because we did not want to take our brothers and sisters to court.”
Debate, votes take place
Presbytery commissioners’ debate July 31 on the future of the Murphy church was shorter and less contentious than their discussions three months earlier about Montreat Presbyterian Church’s dismissal request. Commissioners voted April 24 to release that 455-member congregation to the EPC and create a “continuing” Montreat Presbyterian Church within the PCUSA. Ownership of that church’s property remains in limbo while presbytery and church leaders negotiate.
The presbytery task force made two recommendations to commissioners about the dismissal of the Murphy church:
- 1. “That the Murphy congregation be reluctantly and with sadness dismissed to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church with the blessings of this presbytery.”
- 2. “That the stated clerk of this presbytery contact every known member of the Murphy congregation and give them an opportunity to choose between being transferred to the EPC or remaining in the PCUSA (or be transferred to a congregation in another denomination recognized by the PCUSA).”
The Rev. Terry L. Hanna, chair of the task force and pastor of Bryson City Presbyterian Church in Bryson City, N.C., told commissioners that “prayerful consideration and much conversation” went into the recommendations. She said the task force first met June 14, then met June 21 with the Murphy church’s session.
The task force met again June 25 to discuss its findings from the June 21 meeting and prepare a report for the committee on ministry, Hanna said. The following day, the task force mailed a letter to every member of the Murphy church that explained the task force’s purpose and offered to listen to anyone who wanted to express concerns, she said. Only four responses were received, she said.
The committee on ministry met July 10 and went over the task force’s recommendations, said Hanna, who then made an emotional plea for commissioners’ approval. “It is my concern that to table this recommendation would not create any better solution in the future, but would rather create further ill will and that that struggle, in and of itself, would conflict our denomination and our witness to Jesus Christ,” she said. “It is my prayer that we can begin to find ways to bring back congregations at the beginning of their process to disengage, rather than at the end of a long and exhausting battle.”
Commissioners were supposed to vote first on the coordinating council’s recommendation that the property decision be delayed, but the Rev. George Gunn, stated supply pastor of Fletcher Presbyterian Church in Newland, N.C., proposed dividing the question into delaying both the dismissal and property decisions. Commissioners approved Gunn’s proposal, but went on to reject both delays.
Debate then began on letting the Murphy church go. It took about 75 minutes, with speakers about evenly divided – as per presbytery meeting rules – between voting for dismissal and voting against dismissal. Discussion was mostly free of rancor, although two comments – one from an anti-dismissal speaker who said pastors of dissenting churches should be let go from the PCUSA rather than “stirring up” their congregations, and another from a pro-dismissal speaker who said no one would attend a PCUSA in Murphy, N.C., after the way the denomination acted – brought audible murmurs from the audience.
A motion was made to amend the task force’s recommendations to read that the members of the church were dismissed, rather than the church itself. After some discussion, the proposal was ruled out of order.
The Murphy church’s future came down to a ballot vote. Commissioners voted 131-20 to dismiss the congregation to the EPC.
Debate over the church’s property began next and lasted about 40 minutes. The task force made two recommendations to presbytery commissioners:
- 1. “That the Murphy congregation, in honor of the trust obligations in Book of Order [clause] G-8.0201, be permitted to buy all its property for $10,000, payable at $2,000 a year for five years, without interest; and that this presbytery shall use that money to support its mission initiative.”
- 2. “That the Murphy congregation not be officially dismissed until the above provisions for membership have been completed and a covenant for the property has been executed.”
Questions were raised in the debate about how the task force came up with its $10,000 figure and why an appraisal of the church’s property was not done. Hanna said the $10,000 figure represented the church’s prior per-capita contributions to the presbytery, divided up into what the task force felt the church could give annually. As for not doing an appraisal, she said the task force simply didn’t think of it.
At least one speaker also expressed concern about whether the property deal established a precedent for other churches that will request dismissal in the future. Bob McFerren, an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Burnsville, N.C., proposed that the task force’s recommendations be amended to add one more section stating: “This decision will not be cited as a precedent for future actions of presbytery.” The proposal was approved 71-56.
Commissioners then voted by ballot on the property decision. It was approved 95-53.
Before adjourning, commissioners approved a proposal from the Rev. Eddie Deas III, pastor of Third Street Presbyterian Church in Gastonia, N.C., that the presbytery do appraisals first from now on for the property of churches that request dismissal.
What’s next for the Murphy church?
The Murphy church had a meeting Aug. 1 to share the details of the previous day’s presbytery meeting with anyone who wanted them, Wildsmith said. But he added that his church is ready to move forward rather than look backward.
“The church is ready to get on with the work of the Church, to share Christ with a world that desperately needs Him,” he said. “We’ve had to spend over a year dealing with this, and we feel like it’s time for it to be put behind us so that we can go on with that work.”
The presbytery has some unfinished business with the church:
- The committee on ministry is scheduled to vote on dismissing Wildsmith to the EPC at its meeting later this month.
- A letter will be sent out to all church members asking them whether they want to stay with the Murphy church in the EPC or transfer to another church.
- Once all the postcard responses to the letter have been received and the committee on ministry’s vote on Wildsmith are completed, that information will be shared with the EPC’s Presbytery of the Southeast, which is to accept the Murphy church and Wildsmith into the denomination.
The church’s final paperwork for joining the EPC also is being submitted, and documents agreeing to the $10,000 payment to the presbytery will have to be signed in exchange for receiving paperwork from the presbytery showing the church owns its property, Wildsmith said. The Murphy church expects to make its first payment on the $10,000 obligation later this year, but the congregation will have to discuss how much will be paid initially, he said. He’s not yet sure if it will affect the 111-year-old church’s budget.
Wildsmith expects the church’s membership to grow when it joins the EPC, as some members are expected to return from the inactive roll. Membership has dipped to around 60 over the past year, he said.
“This is a wonderful congregation and a wonderful community. I feel like God has in store great things for us,” the pastor said. “We hope to continue to be faithful, and preach and teach the Word of God, and train our disciples and send them back out in the world. We are ready to return our focus to worship, to evangelism, to ministering in the community, to serving Christ.”
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@layman.org.