Wabash Presbytery dismisses
three churches for $975,000
The Layman, February 24, 2009
The Presbytery of Wabash Valley in Indiana has dismissed three congregations to the Midwest Presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The Feb. 20 vote in favor of the dismissals, which will become effective on April 15, was overwhelming.
Covenant Presbyterian Church of West Lafayette, First Presbyterian Church of Frankfort and First Presbyterian Church of Nappanee cited theological and ethical differences as the basis for their request. The three congregations initiated working with the presbytery in June of 2007.
Combined, the three congregations agreed to pay $975,000 to the presbytery to keep their property and assets. They also agreed to change their names. According to the comparative statistics of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Covenant had 1,165 members at the end of 2007. The Frankfort congregation had 303 members and First in Nappanee had 99. Combined, the exit fee cost the three congregations more than $620 per member.
The congregations’ ministers say that “it is anticipated that the congregations will remain in their present locations and retain their present leadership.”
The three congregations and the presbytery have agreed to jointly plan a closing/sending worship shortly after April 15. In this final shared worship, according to a joint news release, they will pray for one another and bless one another as they pursue their respective callings.
The news release was signed by the Rev. Raymond J. Fancher, interim executive presbyter, Presbytery of Wabash Valley, Rochester, Ind.; the Rev. Carol McDonald, moderator, Presbytery of Wabash Valley; the Rev. David W. Henderson, senior minister of Covenant Presbyterian Church; the Rev. Thomas B. Jameson, pastor of First Presbyterian in Frankfort; and the Rev. Terry J. Tyler, pastor of First Presbyterian in Nappanee.
They released their own questions and answers and said they would make no additional comment.
1. These processes have proved to be difficult in other Presbyteries. Has that been true in this situation?
Fancher: “Every presbytery around the country is unique with a very different context and a particular style of leadership. Anytime there is a division or separation in the Body of Christ it involves painful choices and broken relationships. When faced with unavoidable decisions, we tend to want quick, easy solutions. The issues we face as the church today are complex and the necessary decisions are difficult. Our experience has not been void of these realities.”
Henderson: “We started this process because we were concerned that the denomination seemed to be accepting a wider and wider range of theological positions on some of the central tenets of our faith, and we just couldn’t agree with some of those positions. There was also disagreement over what it meant to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching in certain areas of ethics, such as in the area of sexuality. Those concerns together led us to explore whether it would be best to move to a different denomination, to one that shared more of our convictions.
“Disagreement is never easy, especially when it has to do with beliefs you hold deeply. Unfortunately, though, we human beings seem to think that either you love someone or you disagree with them, that you can’t do both at the same time. We’ve tried to figure out how to love those with whom we disagree.
“Has it been difficult? Sure. We all would have preferred not to have to go through this, and there were plenty of challenging moments along the way. But we were determined to let love have the last word, not disagreement or frustration or hurt. And I think it has.”
Jameson: “While it’s true that this process is inherently difficult, it has been my hope, and I believe the hope of all who have been involved, to proceed in such a way as to minimize the difficulty. Specifically, we have tried to operate under a common commitment of faithfulness to the Lord, care for one another, trust and good faith. These have been the high ideals of the process, and ones to which we continually have held ourselves accountable.
“What has been most compelling for me is the desire of all those involved to have how we have gone about this difficult situation to be a gift to the greater church, and to the world. People of common faith in Jesus Christ will not always agree, but there are principles Christ has given that dictate how we deal with the disagreement. Honesty, humility, thinking more highly of others than of ourselves–these are some of our guiding principles, and abiding by them has allowed us to genuinely love one another through this process.”
Tyler: “This has proven to be more difficult than initially anticipated. By God’s grace and the persistent nudging of the Holy Spirit we were able to maintain the commitment to honor God in this process. The Fruit of the Spirit dominated the long process even as we struggled to suppress fleshly responses to difficult matters.”
2. You set out from the beginning to make this a different sort of process. Describe the commitments that you made together.
Henderson: “It’s so easy to fall into a justice-based approach to a process like this, to have your highest concern be about protecting your rights and coming out exactly even. We really wanted to do something different, to approach this in a grace-based way, to think in terms of generosity and giving gifts and making allowances and not being so concerned that we come out of it with precisely what we believe is our due.
“Right from the start, we agreed that we would seek to be gracious and respectful to one another, that we would not assume ill will or assign motive to each another, and that we would do everything we could to keep this out of the courts.
“The session of our church, our elected church leaders, spent a lot of time during the process studying the way Jesus responded when he found himself in the midst of conflict and hurt, and we tried to follow His example as closely as we could.
“We were all very aware that the way we treated one another would one day be made known publicly. We felt a deep responsibility not to do anything that would tarnish God’s reputation. There have been too many times when Christians have given in to anger and hostility, instead of being true to our Master’s clear command to love one another no matter what.
“Too many people have the idea that God is an angry God, and that Christians are angry people. We wanted to show otherwise. Whenever God reveals His nature in the Scriptures, He always uses words like gracious, merciful, loving, slow to anger. Well, those are the words we wanted to be used of us when we got done with this process. We want to reflect the One we follow.
Jameson: “One of our desires from the start was to have a sending service at the end of all this, when we would pray for each other, bless one another’s ministries, and entrust one another into the Lord’s care as brothers and sisters in Christ. I’m so pleased that is going to happen as soon as all the transfer details are finished. The churches and the presbytery are planning the service together, and the whole presbytery as well as all three of the churches will be invited. I think it will be a great capstone to a God-honoring process.”
“There have been many issues that have led to this decision, and some of those are difficult, if not painful
to talk about. What initially moved this process forward was a mutual commitment to honor the fact that we have disagreements, and not demonize or denigrate each other. The hard work of exploring those issues was done in a careful and open manner, refraining from personal attack or accusation.
“There has been a commitment to face the issues as fellow believers in Jesus Christ, and not to call into question one another’s faith or devotion to the Lord. A strong commitment to see this through to the end has been very helpful, as well as the agreement that this isn’t about who’s “right”–it’s about what’s best, given the varied convictions we have. Above all, the commitment to honor Jesus Christ and do nothing to damage His testimony by being obedient to Scripture has been fundamental to all aspects of the process.”
Fancher: “First, all the key leaders from the three congregations and presbytery gathered in prayer, communion, shared meals, and honest dialogue. We committed ourselves to a process that involved mutual respect and mutually agreed decisions. We chose to avoid making the other our enemy or speaking ill of them in their absence. We committed ourselves to a process that would not end up in civil court.
“There were days – and nights – when the option of letting the courts settle the dispute seemed very tempting! Each time, however, we would come back to the Table of our Lord where we could engage one another anew. An earlier giant in the church and this country, Reinhold Niebuhr, reminds us that in our disputes or conflicts, it is appropriate to use the power we have been given to settle such dispute or conflict. However, power must always be exercised with a great sense of humility. Otherwise, the powerful might begin to assume a role of superiority and fall prey to blindness about its own self-interest.
“We may certainly disagree about spiritual and theological issues. It is sinful, however, to equate my position with “God’s will” in opposition to the other. In this month of Lincoln’s birth I am reminded of powerful words in his second inaugural address:
Both (parties) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us not judge, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully’ (Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address).
Tyler: “What characterized our congregation’s approach from the beginning was the decision to recognize that we can have disagreements with brothers and sisters and that those disagreements do not have to lead to name calling and the questioning of the faith of those with whom we disagree. We were also committed to finishing the process regardless of how long it might take. Seasons of prayer and fasting by the congregation kept us focused.”