Presbytery of Mississippi Proposed overture wants PCUSA to sever its ties with the EPC The Layman Online Monday, February 11, 2008 The Presbytery of Mississippi, citing the growing number of congregations disaffiliating from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and joining the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, has called a special meeting to vote on a proposed overture to the 218th General Assembly of the PCUSA that, if approved, would suspend the EPC's relationship with the PCUSA. The proposed overture, which will be voted on Feb. 12 at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Miss., also calls for a review of the PCUSA's "communion relationships" with the EPC "to determine why these relationships should not be rescinded." The overture was proposed by the administrative commission for Grace Chapel Presbyterian Church, which is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the presbytery from violating a final declaratory judgment that resolved a property ownership lawsuit that the church brought against the presbytery in March. The proposed overture reads as follows: "Be it Resolved that the Presbytery of Mississippi PCUSA does hereby overture the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA): (1) to temporarily suspend all the rights and privileges of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of being in correspondence with the Presbyterian Church (USA), and (2) to review its communion relationships with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church to determine why these relationships should not be rescinded if the activities of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church described in our rationale below do not cease." In a report presented at the recent meeting of the Presbytery of the East, EPC Stated Clerk/Executive Pastor Jeff Jeremiah said: "Our relationship with the PCUSA is deteriorating. In the early fall, a PCUSA constitutional body declared that presbyteries are not to dismiss churches to our Transitional Presbyteries. After Thanksgiving, PCUSA leadership began complaining to our G.A. office that representatives of the EPC are "initiating contact, soliciting and recruiting" PCUSA churches to come to the EPC. In addition, they are displeased that we have received churches into our presbyteries before they have completed their constitutional dismissal process (that is, we're receiving churches that have disaffiliated from the PCUSA). I replied that we do not initiate contact, solicit or recruit churches and leaders outside the EPC. We respond to inquiries and invitations from the spiritual leadership of congregations who want to learn more about the EPC. "This month, I received notice that a draft overture to the 2008 PCUSA General Assembly had been received calling for a severing of the 'in correspondence' relationship of the PCUSA with the EPC. As more churches seeking to leave the PCUSA find that dismissal is untenable and disaffiliate, I anticipate the momentum within the PCUSA to sever ties with us will increase. I would note to you that PCUSA leadership does not acknowledge that anything is happening in the PCUSA that would cause a church to want to leave. Their position, as represented to us, is that it is because of our actions that their churches want to depart. "In the meantime. we will continue to keep "the main thing the main thing," and pursue the missional future we believe our Lord has for us. And we will continue to do what we've done for the last twenty-seven years-in response to struggling and hurting congregations and leaders looking for help, we will offer God-honoring counsel, comfort and encouragement."

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