2,000-member congregation splits over calling pastor rule
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, May 15, 2000
RALEIGH – A prosperous 2,000-member Presbyterian congregation in North Carolina’s capital city has split just two months before the 212th General Assembly considers an overture that might have led to a change in the Book of Order that could have prevented the reason for the division.
Approximately half of the congregation, three associate pastors, 10 staff members and 15 elders decided to leave St. Andrews Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA). The new independent congregation, called Grace Community Church, met for the first time Sunday, May 14, in a Raleigh shopping mall.
Two days after the walkout, the session of St. Andrews met. Only five elders attended the meeting.
Pastor’s call the issue
The issue that led to the division was whether St. Andrews could call an associate minister to become senior minister, succeeding the Rev. Robert Walkup, who resigned because of health problems.
The Book of Order forbids direct ascension of an associate to senior minister in the same congregation. An overture before the General Assembly would change the rules to allow an associate to be called as senior minister if 90 percent of the congregation and 75 percent of the commissioners to presbytery approve the call. A majority vote of the nation’s presbyteries would be required before the change could be incorporated into the PCUSA’s constitution.
Before the exodus, New Hope Presbytery began to pressure the church to begin the process of selecting a pastor, and in the meantime, to appoint an interim pastor. St. Andrews resisted, saying it liked its leadership.
Administrative commission
New Hope Presbytery appointed an administrative commission to try and settle the issue. But with all the pastors and most of the staff leaving, the commission, led by Bob Dunham, pastor of University Church in Chapel Hill, now must focus on the remaining members at St. Andrews.
The News & Observer of Raleigh published a story on May 11 saying that the leaders of the new church “had grown to resent the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the 2.6-million-member denomination.”
Craig Holliday, who was one of the three associates at St. Andrews, was favored to become senior minister of St. Andrews. He is now serving as senior minister of Grace Community Church.
The Rev. Murry Haber and the Rev. Stephanie Davage joined Holliday in renouncing the jurisdiction of the PCUSA to begin serving the independent congregation.
In a letter to those remaining at St. Andrews, the three former associates said, “This is not that one understanding is right and the other wrong, but merely different.”
That letter, other correspondence and minutes of session meetings are posted on the St. Andrews web site.