It may sound like the set-up line for one of Johnny Carson’s Karmac the Great routines, but with the interesting timing of the release of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) membership numbers the week before the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s 29th General Assembly some may see it as a Divine Comedy. (And I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out all the possible meanings of that.)

I will do a more focused run-down of the EPC GA in a later post, especially the interesting document that they adopted providing their formal definition and direction regarding what it means to be a missional church.  That, in my opinion, is the most exciting thing to come out of the Assembly.

But here I want to close the loop on all the EPC/PC(USA) issues that are on the table.  Even after this GA the issues are still on the table and this will not be any sort of final word.  In fact, they will probably keep going for a while yet…

For the EPC side with reports from the General Assembly I will go to my regular reads — Michael McCarty at Around the Scuttlebutt and David Fischler at The Reformed Pastor.  For the topics in this post it is mainly the Rev. Fischler.  (Thanks for all the detail.)

Actions at the EPC General Assembly
One of the topics that I discussed in my pre-Assembly summary was the polity dance that the EPC is working through to be able to accommodate both egalitarian and complimentarian churches in their structure.  Mid-America Presbytery brought an overture proposing a dual “affinity presbytery” structure but ahead of the meeting the PJC ruled the overture was out of order because structural changes like those proposed would require new language in the Book of Order.  The Presbytery said they would not contest the PJC ruling and the Assembly upheld it.  (For more details check out David’s Day 2 Report.)  What came out of this particular debate was a proposal for an interim committee to “to explore ways to provide a pathway to unity while protecting freedom of conscience.”  The committee was approved by the Assembly the next day.  The committee will include two elders from each presbytery including the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery and will report back at next year’s Assembly. (Day 3 Part 2 Report)

On the last day of the Assembly the Fraternal Relations Committee brought a recommendation, and it appears the Assembly concurred, “to continue to communicate with the PC(USA) according to biblical principles and to encourage ‘face-to-face’ talks.”  (Day 4 Report)

More on that in a minute, but first the PC(USA) item…

PC(USA) Membership Numbers — The Response
For anyone just joining the conversation this may seem like a strange jump, but while the churches realigning from the PC(USA) to the EPC are not the largest group leaving the denomination, it is the largest single “identifiable” destination.  That is in contrast to those who “drift off” and are removed from the rolls or individually transfer to a variety of other churches.  And as Scott comments on my discussion of the membership statistics, the departures to the EPC are just one component of the departures from the PC(USA) for people who are unhappy with the negative climate they see in the church.

The membership statistics elicited responses from the wide community of PC(USA) and other Reformed bloggers.  Among these:

• The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Moderator of the General Assembly, comments that the denomination operates with an out-dated world view.
• Jody Harrington at Quotidian Grace points out that this decline is bigger than just this one denomination.
• On The Heidelblog R. Scott Clark discusses what the statistics mean about active members of the PC(USA) if you were to clear the roles and also the implications for the EPC.
• Rev Kim at Called to be: The Pastor’s Wife and the Pastor reflects on what the decline looks like as a pastor serving a congregation.
• And John Shuck of Shuck and Jive, in a post titled “Presbyterian Pruning” wonders whether this decline is actually a good thing for the denomination.  He has a number of interesting thoughts including “Maybe it is good news that the denomination is losing members. Perhaps it is a sign that people are growing up, thinking for themselves, and have no need of evangelists who want to save them from the pits of hell.” And “So I will expect more and more huge losses for the PCUSA until progressives and traditionalists part ways. I don’t think this will happen by design, but by attrition.”  (And if you did not catch it the reference to “no need of evangelists” is a direct response Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons’ call for us to be evangelists.)

As you can see, many of those watching the PC(USA) do not see the membership decline as isolated from other branches, although individual perspectives vary.

EPC and PC(USA) Ecumenical Relations
As you can see from the EPC response above, and my previous comments about the PC(USA) Investigating Committee, this is a sensitive topic right at the moment. 

To recap, the last PC(USA) General Assembly set up the investigating committee to check out charges that the EPC was actively recruiting churches away from the PC(USA).  Again, Viola Larson has some comments about this and the possibility that the meeting in her presbytery was not well publicized.

Now, Michael McCarty has some details of one encounter between the investigating committee and a church.  He relates the follow
ing:

But at the [EPC] GA, I met several folks whose congregations went directlyfrom the PC(USA) to a geographic EPC presbytery. Their congregationsdid meet with representatives of the “investigating” committee,although the committee members were surprised that ruling elders andmembers attended. (They had “invited” only the pastors.)

Theirexperience was telling. After the pastors, elders and members relatedhow their congregations initiated the move, and initiated the contactwith the EPC, the committee representatives interjected withdeclarative “questions” such as “Well, you knew that what you weredoing was wrong, correct?” or “You never proved that the PC(USA) wasapostate, so leaving was a violation of ordination vows, right?”

Whenthe EPC members asked their inquisitors “Wait, we thought you wanted toknow that we were not recruited. It sounds as if you have already madeup your mind that we were recruited, although we were not, and are justlooking for sound bites to support your position. Is that correct?”

Stunningly, the PC(USA)’s response was “That is correct.”

One polity point – I will accept the account here that only the pastor was invited to the meeting, but in our polity I don’t view that as appropriate.  While I could accept excluding at-large members, the meeting should be held with the Session since that is the governing body of the congregation.  After all, when the presbytery meets with the church every three years under G-11.0502c it meets with the full session.

Now, I must admit that I viewed this account with a certain degree of caution, this being the account from one side of a meeting.  Until yesterday…

At church yesterday, out of the blue and without prompting, I had a member of my congregation come up and describe to me a similar meeting that a family member of theirs was at.  Since it was in a different synod I did not know the details, but as described it seemed like one of these meetings.  To me one of the most fascinating aspects was that the church was a PC(USA) congregation that, while having sympathies for the New Wineskins churches, had chosen not to realign with the EPC but stay with the PC(USA).  Never the less, the description of how the presbytery/investigating committee came into the meeting was described as “adversarial.”  After hearing their description and how upset my friend was at what happened at their relative’s church I now have a lot more respect for Mr. McCarty’s account.

But I want to close with a sign of hope.  While some may debate if this news account can be looked at as a positive outcome from all aspects, at least if you want to look at the total number of people in the pews this is a win-win situation.  (And yes, I realize that there is a lot of painful history leading up to this point.) (Update: Michael McCarty has posted a discussion of this painful history at Londonderry and some info with slightly different numbers for membership and worshipers.)

The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass., has a story titled “Divided Congregation Flourishes as Two New Groups.”  It is about the Londonderry Presbyterian Church which divided in 2007.  The article relates that at that time there were 375 members of the congregation.  A large group left the church and founded the Orchard Christian Fellowship in the EPC.  In the nearly two years since the split the continuing PC(USA) congregation has grown from 39 to 224 members.  The EPC congregation has also flourished and now numbers 450 members.  Doing the math, what was a congregation of 375 is now two respectable churches with a combined membership of about 675, a number approaching double the original size. (1.82 times larger to be precise.)

Is there a lesson in here about finding ways to get past our controversies quickly for the sake of the Gospel?  I do realize some may only see the true Gospel or True Church in one or the other of these churches.  But maybe both sides can see the outcome as beneficial for them if they realize that getting the division done quickly, while it may not be the best display of Christian unity, at least sends a better message than long, drawn out court battles.  And maybe both sides would view it as “pruning,” but this particular example seems to suggest that getting the division out of the way lets a congregation get on with their life and better focus on the mission of the church.

Just some thoughts, but I was intrigued by the Londonderry example.  And yes, I realize that it is not so easy to just say “you go your way and I’ll go mine” because there is the children property to think of.  But it does provide something to think about.

And speaking of mission, I’ll return later with a look at the newly adopted EPC view of a missional church.