By Nina Shapiro, Seattle First Presbyterian — a landmark, downtown church with a $20 million property — is considering a split from the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country.
The move comes as the liberal-leaning denomination, Presbyterian Church (USA), faces a number of defections locally and nationally over theological controversies, particularly its decisions over the last few years to ordain gay and lesbian clergy and to redefine marriage as between two people, rather than between a man and a woman.
Married co-pastors Jeff and Ellen Schulz said they and a team of other leaders in the church are recommending the split to the congregation as they seek to rebuild its massively diminished membership. Once thought to be the largest Presbyterian church in the country or even the world, with 8,000 members, it now draws just 125.
It’s a small group in a huge, 38,000-square-foot building, which stretches from Seventh and Eighth avenues along Spring Street, across from City Hall.
Ellen Schulz said the revitalization effort requires “out-of-the-box, entrepreneurial” approaches that don’t mesh well with the bureaucratic structure of Presbyterian Church (USA).
She and her husband also acknowledged theological differences. “In some denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Bible has become not the authoritative word of God, but one of many guides,” Jeff Schulz said.
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It seems to me that the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle should determine who owns the property before they talk about splitting.
The Seattle Presbytery is having a special meeting to appoint an administrative committee. In view of this, competent legal counsel is urgently and immediately necessary.
FPC Seattle needs to contact FPC San Antonio to get a blueprint for how to leave with their property intact. By all means they need to protect their property first and NOT try to go through PCUSA’s (not very) “gracious separation” policy. If they try the latter route, PCUSA will steamroll them and they will find themselves locked out of their own building which will be sold to the benefit of the Presbytery, not the members.
The ones who built, maintained, and worshiped in the building SHOULD be the ones that own it. Anything is
simply wrong.
While they seek discernment over leaving, I hope they also look into why people have left. I think it is more than just issues with the PCUSA, though I can imagine these issues do have an impact. Also, even if the church were to regain its former membership of around 8000 that would not get them even close to being the largest Presbyterian church in the world, as the article alludes to. There are Presbyterian churches in Korea with 50k, 80k members.
I attend that church. The elders voted unanimously to leave PCUSA and join Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterian Churches. They said they didn’t think there would be any property disputes because the forefathers of our church were farsighted enough to’incorporate’ so the church owns the property and not PCUSA. The reason the church owns so much property is that the church was formed even before Washington became a state when Seattle property was very cheap.
Please keep the Layman and those who follow developments what happens and comes next. How will the Seattle Presbytery respond?
Will there be pressure from national leaders? there have been a lot of churches leaving south and east of Seattle across the Cascades mountains
but fewer in the West part of Washington State along the I-5 corridor. There are no ECO churches in this area at this time. In fact North Puget Sound Presbytery has assimilated two other Presbyteries which will affect the character of that Presbytery which has always voted conservative. Seattle First PC is a unique case since the property is so valuable compared to the numbers. Thanks.
Nov. 25, 2015. Our small Ky denomination has in recent years become very loose in its interpretation of the Bible. Nevertheless, we always had good ministers who could keep us together in a vibrant, active group. Now we have the most extreme, misguided leader we’ve ever had. To my dismay, many members agree with him, or like him “because he’s real good about visiting the sick.” PCUSA does own our building, but it is not worth the required $2M to leave. So we can’t leave. Guess I will have to.
The property that First Pres Seattle is on belongs to Seattle Presbytery. It is pretty simple and First Pres acknowledges that.