San Joaquin migration begins
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, September 21, 2009
EXETER, Calif. – Sept. 17 was migration day for San Joaquin Presbyterians. Trekking south from Fresno and Clovis and north from Bakersfield, they converged in Exeter, gateway to the Sierra Nevada’s Sequoia National Park.
The Rev. Noel Anderson
On that day, San Joaquin Presbyterians came together in order to come apart. “After today, everything has changed for us,” said the Rev. Noel Anderson, moderator of the meeting.
The centerpiece of this presbytery’s docket was a proposal from its transition team to allow three churches to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) with their property. First (Fresno), Trinity (Clovis) and Fowler Presbyterian Churches had decided to seek a new home in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The question before the house was, would this presbytery fight their departure, punish their pastors, and sue for their sanctuaries as other presbyteries have done, or would San Joaquin do it differently?
San Joaquin did it differently. Tearfully, they bade farewell to their brothers and sisters and prayed that the Lord would bless them on their way.
A California Bible belt
The San Joaquin valley is fertile ground for Bible-believing Christians. One has only to cruise CA-99 to see “Jesus” signs on roadside fruit stands; “In God We Trust” beside rows of beehives that border peach, plum and nectarine groves; “He is Lord” on trucks transporting raisins to market.
First Presbyterian Church in Fresno.
Area Presbyterians reflect this evangelical faith. Fresno’s First Church is a thriving downtown landmark, proclaiming the faith since 1882. Now encompassed in scaffolding, this impressive structure is getting a facelift from its vibrant congregation.
Trinity Church is perched on a hill in Clovis, just outside Fresno. Towering over Copper River and upscale Monte Verdi developments and in view of the nearby Yosemite National Park, this evangelical congregation averages 800 people in worship and has conducted more than 200 baptisms (many of which were administered to adults) in the past eight years.
Prominently positioned on a tree-lined main street in the “grape and raisin capital of the world,” the Spanish styled buildings and well-groomed grounds of Fowler Presbyterian Church evidence loving care from its predominantly rural congregation. Fowler Presbyterians cut off funding to higher governing bodies many years ago, but actions of the 2008 General Assembly drove them to a tipping point at which their conscience could no longer allow them any association with what they believe is an apostate denomination.
Issues with the ‘wider church’
Spokespersons for these three congregations made it very clear that they have no beef with San Joaquin Presbytery. In fact, their departures from those who “feel like family” were laced with tears. All had poured time and money into San Joaquin’s efforts to turn the PCUSA back to its foundational faith in Jesus, the Bible and the social witness born of spiritual transformation. Numerous resolutions and overtures from this presbytery over the years reflected its struggle to bear faithful witness while living under the PCUSA banner.
Fowler Presbyterian Church
In 2001, after the General Assembly was unable to declare Jesus Christ as Lord of all, San Joaquin distanced itself from denominational equivocations with a Confessing Church-type resolution. After the 2006 General Assembly undermined the denomination’s Biblical standards of sexual behavior, San Joaquin issued a statement of conscience, warning the national governing body that its churches would not tolerate a continuing drift from Biblical faith and morals. In 2008, San Joaquin struggled to keep its churches together, but it determined that it would not threaten lawsuits to hold hostage its congregations.
Affirming ties that bind
“I do not want them to leave, but if they leave us to unite with another Reformed body, they will not be leaving the Church,” said the Rev. Rick Irish, San Joaquin’s stated clerk. “We will continue to be brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and we will continue to work alongside them to share the Gospel in this valley.”
That sentiment was echoed by representatives of the departing congregations during discussions preceding the vote. Although the presbytery enacted a policy that spurns any attempt to grasp property or extract exit fees from congregations that choose to leave, all three churches have voluntarily offered to continue making mission gifts to the presbytery. They intend to utilize and underwrite costs of the presbytery’s Calvin Crest camp and support many of its regional mission activities. During the meeting, there was also talk of various joint mission projects that would reach across the newly drawn denominational boundaries.
Trinity Presbyterian Church in Clovis.
The presbytery transition team and spokespersons for the departing churches insisted that these are not quid pro quo arrangements. “Presbytery did not ask us for any money,” said Trinity’s pastor, the Rev. Chuck Shillito, “but we are glad to support some of its ministries during this transition period.”
“Our problem is not with the presbytery,” said Tom Beaver, an elder in the Fowler church. “We believe that the Lord has brought us to the place that we cannot in conscience remain attached to the PCUSA. This is a matter of accountability to our Lord.”
Debating departure
Although the written ballot vote to allow these churches to leave was not unanimous, it represented an almost 3-1 majority. Most of those who said they were voting “no” said they feared that these departures would diminish the presbytery’s evangelical voice in the PCUSA.
Randy Sheer of Orange Grove pleaded with the departing churches to reconsider: “What’s going to happen to us when you leave? Every time issues that challenge orthodoxy come up, there are less and less of us to say ‘no.’ Life will be harder for us when you’re gone. I beg of you, will you stay and help us?”
But Steve Carter of Fresno’s Westminster Church said, “I will vote for this even though it breaks my heart. I believe that our unity is in Christ, not in structures.”
With tears streaming down her face, elder commissioner Betty Massy said, “I think I’m voting yes, but it kills me.”
Another elder said, “This is like a divorce. The pain never goes away. I’ll have to let you go, but with a heavy heart. We will not have you to fight for us against un-Christ-like elements in the denomination. You can run, but you can’t hide. Satan will follow you into any denomination.”
Only one commissioner, the Rev. Tom Elson, brought up the property issue. He argued that in allowing the churches to take their property with them, the presbytery was “supporting a ministry that has chosen to question our [PCUSA] ministry as un-Biblical.”
Insisting that the congregations’ property belonged to the PCUSA, Elson said, “You are asking us to not have a ministry in locations where our denomination says that’s a vital place to have a ministry.” He said that if the PCUSA should decide to initiate a ministry in areas occupied by the departing churches, “it would now be forced to find property and funds to establish its new churches.”
The vote to release Trinity was 57-18; Fresno First, 60-16; and Fowler, 63-11. After each vote, presbyter
s encircled representatives from the departing church, laid their hands on them and prayed that the Lord would bless their continuing witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
More departures expected
Seven additional churches are reportedly lined up for the next wave of exits, one of them being First Church Bakersfield, one of the presbytery’s largest churches, whose session has voted to recommend a move to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Other congregations, like the Hanford Presbyterian Church, are discerning God’s calling. A recent vote by that congregation revealed a 50-50 split. For churches like Hanford, just one more provocation from PCUSA leaders could push them over the edge, and the business already proposed for the 2010 General Assembly is of grave concern.
San Joaquin’s future is in serious jeopardy. The presbytery will be sustained by gifts in hand from its departing churches, but its long-term financial viability appears tenuous. In his stated clerk’s report, Rick Irish reflected on the presbytery’s plight in Biblical terms.
“I’ve tried to understand what is happening to us,” he said. “… The lump of clay that we call the visible church is being changed, and I believe [it is being done by] Sovereign hands. While the clay vessel is important, the light of God that is in it is more important. Let’s look more to the light inside than to the shape of the vessel. As Scripture says, even while we are outwardly wasting away, we are being renewed day by day.”
‘You have brought this upon us’
At the conclusion of the vote, Anderson delivered his moderatorial address: “What has happened here today is a landmark in the life of this presbytery. General Assembly of the PCUSA: You have brought this upon us. We are the symptom bearers of the family illness. The General Assembly is not responsible for putting people in our pews, but it is responsible for their exodus.”
“The GA is responsible for these splits, not the Presbytery of San Joaquin. The PCUSA’s drift – shaped by the last two and a half decades of General Assemblies – has pushed us into decline and toward the extreme left of world churches. The drift is not merely one GA’s fault, but many; not one Stated Clerk’s questionable judgment, but a few; not one committee of inbred, entrenched radicals, but many; not one failure to consider the public ramifications of our decisions, but many. In short, we see our witness to Jesus Christ and the Gospel compromised and/or contradicted … and that is why some among us have left.”
“The churches that we have lost today are not the radicals. We know that. We know them. We know that they are healthy, responsible, thoughtful and conscionable congregations. Their prior call to reach the lost leaves no room for further polemics, no room to tolerate further compromises of conscience.”
“Some of us are committed to stay: to work to preserve the integrity of faith and practice. It is up to us who remain to turn toward the higher governing bodies of this denomination and say, ‘By your ideology, you have brought this upon us.’”
Survival plans
Anderson announced that San Joaquin will need to downsize in order to survive the loss of its churches. He said the presbytery council is developing a reorganization plan that envisions dividing the presbytery into three regions, each served by a part-time pastor, with the presbytery’s administrative work being assigned to a half-time stated clerk.
But soulful conversations in the halls revealed a sentiment that even with reorganization, San Joaquin may not remain viable. There was talk of dissolving the presbytery, sending churches in its northern remnant for refuge in Stockton Presbytery and those in its southern remnant to Santa Barbara Presbytery. No such plan was formally placed on the table, but it was the subject of common parlance during San Joaquin’s September meeting.
“Our people are reeling from one assault after another,” a discouraged pastor told The Layman. “The 2010 General Assembly will probably do us in.”
Doing it differently
If San Joaquin had wanted blood on the floor, it could have chosen from a plethora of advice on how to draw the knife. Since 2005, when the PCUSA’s Office of the General Assembly issued harsh counsel to the denomination’s presbyteries – defrocking defiant pastors, removing elected lay leaders, barring congregations from their sanctuaries, changing the locks, freezing bank accounts and picking high church rather than low church judges – the ecclesiastical landscape has been littered with litigation.
South Louisiana Presbytery has just spent nearly $100,000 on a failed lawsuit against one of its New Orleans congregations. The Presbytery of Western North Carolina appears committed to driving the Montreat Evangelical Presbyterian Church out of town, claiming its property and filing personal lawsuits against the congregation’s three trustees. East Oklahoma Presbytery forced its largest and most vital congregation, Kirk of the Hills, to fork over $1.75 million. Eastminster Presbytery lost an expensive battle with Ohio’s Hudson Presbyterian Church, both at the trial court and on appeal. Greater Atlanta Presbytery, which sued for the property of its Timberridge Church must now defend its claim before the Georgia Supreme Court.
So, had San Joaquin chosen to rip into its three departing churches, it had at its disposal plenty of counsel and precedent.