Minnesota church wants to leave with its property
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 17, 2005
Riverside Presbyterian Church wants to keep church facilities and other property on the Mississippi River.Maybe by the end of the year, an Administrative Commission willing, the members of Riverside Presbyterian Church in Sartell, Minn., will know what their future holds.
What they want is a peaceful exodus from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to become a part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the right to keep their property – some of it highly valued because of its frontage on the Mississippi River.
What they’ll get is largely up to the Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys and its Administrative Commission.
Riverside is another example of an evangelical congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA) that believes it’s time to sever its ties with the denomination. Like the others, this attempt to cut and run has some jagged edges.
The Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys has placed an Administrative Commission in charge. Nine remaining session members have been permitted to oversee worship, Christian education and stewardship, but their authority may be further limited or ended. Already, the presbytery has ruled that three elders renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (USA). 
River divides city, population, 12,300, and raises the financial states for Riverside.
Their offense was that, with the commission’s approval, the three elders consulted with a lawyer about church property and the church’s status as a nonprofit corporation, but the elders made a report in a letter that the commission regarded as a declaration that they were no longer members of the PCUSA.
Riverside Church is a Confessing Church with a commitment to an evangelical witness. On the recommendation of the session, the congregation voted 84-24 on April 10 to leave the denomination and affiliate with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Shortly after that vote, the Rev. Bob Springer, the congregation’s pastor for 25 years, resigned because he did not want to leave the PCUSA.
Also in May, the presbytery, in response to the action of the congregation of Riverside Presbyterian Church, voted to “form an Administrative Commission with full powers of seven to nine people appointed by the presbytery moderator.”
The presbytery’s minutes said, “The Commission is to work in partnership with the session of the church, when possible, to determine the future ministry and mission of the church, to listen to and poll the entire membership in order to assess whether a viable remnant exists, to assume original jurisdiction, if deemed necessary and appropriate, for some or all of the responsibilities of the session as outlined in G.- 10.0102 of the Book of Order, and to negotiate for the disposition of the property, if deemed necessary and appropriate.”
Pam Dille, clerk of the Riverside session, said the commission has not fulfilled that charge because it has not listened to or polled the entire membership.
Riverside Church had 161 members at the end of 2004. Dille said the 24 members who voted against withdrawing from the denomination have left the congregation and that total membership now is below 80. She said she did not know whether the deposed elders will continue attending church services. “They only learned about it [their renunciations] Tuesday,” she said.
In any event, “We’d like to keep what we have,” she said. “We’ve paid for it.”
She did not give an estimate, but the church’s assets are high. The Riverside building is on the Mississippi and the property would be more valuable for private purposes, she said. In addition, the congregation owns four lots on the Mississippi, four additional lots, three houses and a parking area.
The session hopes to call an interim minister, the Rev. Richard Townsend Anderson, who has been preaching at Riverside since the first Sunday in November. But that, too, could be a hitch. Riverside will offer Anderson a contract on Sunday, but the presbytery must approve it. Anderson was ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA), but he transferred his membership to another denomination.
Dille has great concern about the items in the church that were given by members in the memory of loved ones. “I’ve been sitting and reading old session minutes,” she said. “A lot of things have been donated in the memory of loved ones. One night, we did an inventory.”
That inventory has a purpose: to safeguard those gifts, if at all possible, should Riverside lose the church property.
But there’s one thing the Administrative Commission doesn’t want on the premises. Someone found a copy of The Layman, Dille said, and complained strongly.
“We had to buy a subscription to Presbyterians Today,” she said.