Perseverance Church members to persevere in other congregations

Perseverance Church members to persevere in other congregations

By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, February 17, 2005

Perseverance Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee plans, well, not to persevere.

If the Presbytery of Milwaukee votes on Feb. 22 to sell the church property (Baptists have offered to buy it for $825,000), the Perseverance saints will go marching in to other congregations.

Perseverance is a name unique to the Northwest Milwaukee congregation. There is no other congregation in the Presbyterian Church (USA) that calls itself Perseverance, a term that is a part of the once-popular acronym TULIP.

TULIP was an Anglicized version of the Reformed doctrines of Dutch Calvinism: Total depravity; Unconditional election; Limited atonement; Irresistible grace; and Perseverance of the saints. Perseverance of the saints means once saved, always saved.

Perseverance Church had shown signs of not persevering. Between 1993 and 2003, the congregation lost more than half of its members, dropping from 226 to 98, according to denominational data.

The congregation once numbered more than 600 and, for a brief period, had J. Oliver Buswell Jr., as its pastor. But Buswell left the mainline denomination to become one of the founders of the Bible Presbyterian Church. He presided at the first meeting of the General Synod of Bible Presbyterian Church in September 1938.

Bible Presbyterian Church is regarded as the most conservative of the Presbyterian denominations in the United States. One of its leading voices was Carl McIntyre, a Scottish Presbyterian who, it is said, was raised on oatmeal and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. McIntyre was a firebrand for the Gospel and against communism.

In preparation for dissolution, the congregation of Perseverance Church engaged in a process of considering its future with the help of its interim pastor, the Rev. Bill Utke, a United Church of Christ minister, and the Alban Institute, a mediation group.

One of Perseverance Church’s latter-day events was to host a peace conference in 2002 in which the participants used the congregation’s labyrinth and Tibetan Prayer Bowl.

Arrangements for the sale of the property have been made with the oversight of a presbytery administrative commission, which says the final “closing service and celebration” will be held at 3 p.m. Feb. 27. The commission said Perseverance members will “blend their gifts and support” with other Presbyterian churches in the area.