Stillman Valley, Ill., congregation votes to request dismissal from PCUSA, pursue EPC membership
By Patrick Jean, Staff Writer, June 27, 2007
The congregation of Kishwaukee Community Presbyterian Church in Stillman Valley, Ill., voted nearly unanimously June 24 to request dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and to seek membership in the smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Two hundred and fifty-three of the church’s 407 members took part in the vote, said the church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Eric Geil. Of those:
- 251 voted to request dismissal from the PCUSA, with two voting to stay.
- 252 voted to pursue membership in the EPC, and one was opposed.
The results were nearly identical to an anonymous straw poll taken at a recent town hall-style congregational meeting to discuss dismissal. Of the 261 in attendance who voted, 259 favored joining the EPC, Geil said.
“The two that said they wanted to stay, in discussions they came forward and let us know who they were even though it was anonymous,” he said. “They said it was just because they were afraid of losing the property.”
The June 24 vote totals will be announced to Blackhawk Presbytery commissioners at their stated meeting July 10. The presbytery’s response and discussions with the church will become more formalized after that meeting, said the general presbyter, the Rev. Dr. John E. Rickard.
The church has had discussions with a presbytery response team consisting of Rickard and members of the committee on ministry.
“We’ve been able to hear each other,” Rickard said. “They’ve expressed their concerns, and I think they’ve heard presbytery’s concerns and interests. So, to that extent, they’ve been good. I wish we weren’t having the conversation.”
Geil said the last straw for his church with the PCUSA was two actions taken last summer by the 217th General Assembly:
- 1. Approval of the report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity that keeps the current ordination standards in the PCUSA’s Constitution, but allows those who choose not to obey them to declare them to be non-essential.
- 2. Receiving a paper on the Trinity that proposes both the Biblical tradition for the names of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as well as a number of alternatives never linked in Scripture as Trinitarian language.
“What we saw was that our efforts over the years – through Presbyterians for Renewal, through Presbyterians Pro-Life, through our involvement with the Confessing Church Movement – we just felt like our efforts weren’t really bearing fruit at all,” he said. “And so it was time to start asking the question of our leadership and of the congregation: ‘Is it time to move on to a denomination that we felt more theologically at home with?'”
For Geil, who has led the church for 1½ years, the current problems run deeper than the Trinity paper and the PUP report. “For me, I’ve seen a continual drift by the national denomination away from Scripture and away from Jesus Christ,” he said. “It takes so many different forms that it’s almost exhausting trying to keep up with the latest. This has, for me, been going on for years.”
Geil also takes issue with “the lack of any sort of church discipline on leaders and pastors who make statements that are definitely un-Biblical. That’s one of the marks of the church, is church discipline,” he said. “It seems like that doesn’t happen when folks make strongly theologically incorrect statements and proclamations.”
The process leading to Kishwaukee Church’s dismissal request vote began last July right after the Birmingham General Assembly with a need for prayer and dialogue, Geil said. “A lot of work went into discerning where the congregation was,” he said. “We have conducted six town hall-style meetings for the congregation that were open to anybody – member, visitor, whoever wanted to be there.”
The session made its recommendation for a congregational vote last month.
Kishwaukee Church is a member of the New Wineskins Association of Churches, a conservative organization that 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.
Geil said his church will pursue joining the New Wineskins-EPC presbytery after it has been dismissed from the PCUSA.
Future discussions between Kishwaukee Church and Blackhawk Presbytery will address the property issue. In exchange for being dismissed with its property, the church has made a $50,000 “friendship offering” that represents five years of per-capita payments to the presbytery, Geil said. Presbytery trustees will discuss the offer after presbytery commissioners address the church’s June 24 vote, he said.
Geil said he hopes the presbytery will have a “mutually acceptable” proposal for dealing with all matters regarding his church – dismissal, property, etc. – by this fall. The presbytery’s next stated meeting after July is Sept. 11.
“Personally, I hear the concerns,” Rickard said. “I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I hear them.”
Joining the EPC will continue a relationship with the Presbyterian faith for Kishwaukee Church that dates back 78 years. The church was with the Wesleyan denomination from its founding in 1844 until 1929, Geil said.
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@www.layman.org.