Small, pastor-less Texas congregation to pay hefty price for freedom from denomination
By Patrick Jean, June 22, 2007
A small, financially struggling Texas church’s request for dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property has been granted by Mission Presbytery.
But the cost of freedom is steep for Faith Presbyterian Church in Brownsville: 10 percent of the proceeds from the expected sale of the church property in the next few years. The church needs the money to have a pastor for the first time in 15 months, said Janet Schooley, its clerk of session.
Ironically, the plan – if agreed to by the church’s session – will net the PCUSA money from a church that its predecessor denominations gave nothing toward building a half-century ago. The funds that forged Faith Presbyterian Church came from another Brownsville congregation and a philanthropic organization, Schooley said.
But it’s not yet clear if the plan, agreed to by presbytery commissioners at their stated meeting June 8-9, is the last word on the subject. A special called meeting may be scheduled to reconsider the motion to dismiss the church, a presbytery trustee said.
When a final dismissal plan is agreed to by the presbytery and the church, it will free Faith Presbyterian Church to seek membership in the smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church – and the proposed New Wineskins Presbytery. The Brownsville church is a member of the New Wineskins Association of Churches, a conservative movement that has asked for the establishment of a transitional, non-geographic presbytery to receive groups of churches into membership in the EPC. Commissioners in that denomination are scheduled to vote at its June 20-23 general assembly on a proposal to authorize the establishment of transitional, non-geographic presbyteries to receive groups of churches into membership.
PUP report was final blow
Schooley said her church’s differences with the PCUSA extend beyond the nearly 10 years that she’s worshiped there. For many years before she joined, she said, the church was expressing concerns to the denomination about its stances on issues such as homosexuality and abortion.
Faith Presbyterian Church withheld per-capita payments to Mission Presbytery for a number of years in protest, Schooley said. “We actually have been talking about leaving for the last five years and, within the last two years, we’ve gotten more and more aggressive until this last year,” she said. “We have done nothing but work on doing that, and we actually started on the procedure – seriously, seriously started – in the fall of last year and had our first meeting.”
For Faith Presbyterian Church, the point of no return was the 217th General Assembly’s approval last June 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. “The PUP report pushed us over the edge,” Schooley said.
The process toward seeking dismissal took a lot of conversation involving the session and congregation, she said. “There was much talk, and we were very blessed in that everyone was of like mind that we needed to move out of being in association with them.”
On Feb. 15, the six-member church session sent a letter to the presbytery in which it formally requested dismissal. “It is with heavy heart that we, Faith Presbyterian Church, are writing to advise the Mission Presbytery that we give this notice of our impending exit from Mission Presbytery and PCUSA,” the letter stated. “This decision is unanimous and irrevocable by our session and congregation.
“There are many reasons for our exit that should come as no surprise, as evidenced by our previous communications with the PCUSA,” the letter continued. “We have irreconcilable differences in core beliefs with the national leadership and direction of the PCUSA. These include the adoption of non-Biblical interpretations of the Lordship of Christ [Sola Cristo] and the rejection of the pre-eminent authority of Scripture [Sola Scriptura], the affirmation of homosexuality, the abortion of unborn children, the condemnation of Israel, to name a few.”
Presbytery’s response
The church’s first meeting with Mission Presbytery after the letter came in April. Schooley said the presbytery’s first response was a call from the Rev. Dr. John Judson, chairman of the committee on ministry, who said his panel would meet with elders first, then later with more church leaders and finally congregation members to see if there was anyone who wanted to retain a “true church” in the PCUSA.
Three members of the committee on ministry came to that first meeting with church elders, Schooley said. “They promised us two things at the first meeting,” she said. “They said, ‘We do not want to impede your church, the work of your church for God’s Kingdom, in any way. That is not our position here, is not to impede the work of Christ for your church.’ And secondly, ‘We are not going to look at what we did in Laredo as a blueprint. We are going to take your church as a separate situation that has nothing to do with what went on in Laredo.'”
First Presbyterian Church in Laredo was dismissed to the EPC in October 2004 by Mission Presbytery. But that freedom came in exchange for a $66,500 settlement – the equivalent of a tithe on property with an estimated value of $665,000. The presbytery took a lien on the church’s property to insure it would get its 10 percent, Schooley said.
Presbytery officials did not respond to interview requests by The Layman Online.
The committee on ministry’s report, in the packet for the presbytery’s stated meeting June 8-9, states a listening team went to Faith Presbyterian Church “to hear from any members of the congregation who had concerns about the church’s desire to leave the PCUSA. All members had been informed of the meeting. No one appeared before the team.”
Schooley said a lone presbytery trustee visited in May and acknowledged that the financially struggling church owned its property, but warned that the PCUSA could sue over it. “They gave us three choices,” she said. “They said we could either give them everything; we could give them a check; or we could fight about it in court.”
She said the trustee, Carl Spinner, said he would write a motion for other trustees that the presbytery let the church go with its property for free.
‘All just a farce’
The church’s differences with the PCUSA, “along with normal attrition, has contributed to many of its members seeking other churches such that current membership is 54 members, consisting of 32 families and 20 pledging units,” the motion states.
“Financial resources have been severely strained, with only about $50,000 in cash equivalents and an annual budget of $91,800,” the motion continues. “The ability to afford to call a pastor at the presbytery minimum compensation and to maintain ordinary and necessary operating expenses are extremely difficult.”
The congregation worships in a facility that “is too large for its membership, yet needs so much costly improvement (new roof, foundation issues, leak-related plumbing and damage repair, new air-conditioning system, plus more) that there are insufficient funds to take it to market,” the motion states. “And then, the net proceeds from selling the property would questionably cover the purchase of a new church facility.”
Schooley said Spinner took an e-mail survey of the eight other presbytery trustees, and seven responded – five in favor of the motion and two opposed to it. He informed the church May 21 and trustees met May 25, she said.
Schooley said she received another response from Spinner at the end of May stating that the presbytery was now asking for 10 percent of the sale of the church property, but offering no explanation for the change of heart.
“They said that [Laredo] had nothing to do with us, that we would be considered in and of ourselves, by ourselves, and not in relation to anything else, that they were not trying to make a cookie cutter into which we had to fit,” she said. “We were very, very pleased and blessed to hear that. What they were saying was that but, indeed, that’s not really what went on.
“My feeling is that all of this was just lip service, that this was all just a farce,” Schooley said. “They were going to get their 10 percent, and they were just going to do this dance and seem very nice to begin with, and see if that would salve us. … They came and they acted very friendly and nice and [said], ‘Yes, we want to help your church,’ and then put a gun to our head and said, ‘Give us 10 percent.'”
Spinner turned down an interview request from The Layman Online, citing the possibility of a special called presbytery meeting to address the church’s dismissal for a second time.
The PCUSA’s predecessor denominations never gave money for Faith Presbyterian Church’s creation in 1956. Money came from First Presbyterian Church in Brownsville and the Earl C. Sams Foundation, Schooley said.
“The bottom line is that they know we are going to sell the church because we need to raise money to have a pastor,” she said. “We are a very poor church. Since our pastor left, we have dwindled – as you can imagine, when you’re without a shepherd. Our population has dwindled, and consequently we’re even poorer.”
Freedom isn’t free
Schooley said Spinner spoke June 9 at the presbytery meeting and informed commissioners of the original motion to let the church go for free. “But then they had talked about it and realized that it would damage – and I believe that was the word he used, it would damage – the PCUSA if they were to let us go for free,” she said. “And he said that without further explanation of what that damage would be. We interpreted the damage would be that if they let us go for free, they might have to let somebody else – a bigger church that had money – go for free.”
Schooley’s presentation to presbytery commissioners, written in conjunction with elders and other church members, focused on pleading for leniency because of the church’s fragile financial status. “In the near future, we will probably have to sell our church property in order to pay a new pastor’s salary,” she told commissioners. “Payment of a ‘gift’ to leave the PCUSA from those sale proceeds would severely and negatively affect our church ministry. Our entire savings-reserve liquid assets amount to date is approximately $45,000. Which church here would want to operate on that slimmest of margins?”
Schooley told commissioners of the missions to which her church provides financial and physical support. “Faith Church has always been and continues to be a mission church. … All of these ministries will be gravely impacted if we are required to pay a substantial gift to the PCUSA,” she said. “Therefore, for economic, compassionate, practical, legal and equitable arguments, we prayerfully and respectfully ask for you to vote to release our small congregation with our meager but essential resources.”
The Revs. Juan Trevino, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Brownsville, and Toby Brown, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Cuero, Texas, spoke of letting the church go for free. Other commissioners suggested letting the church go without its property, while another proposed reducing the presbytery’s take from the sale of the church property to five percent. In the end, however, commissioners voted in favor of the 10 percent plan.
Brown has written about the Faith Presbyterian Church situation on his blog, A Classical Presbyterian. In a posting on the first day of the presbytery meeting, he called for prayer for the church. In a posting June 9 after commissioners voted, he offered support to church members. “Remember how the Lord prospers His servants who go through affliction and continue to give thanks to Him in all things,” he wrote. “He will see to the rest. I’ll see you all in the New Wineskins! Godspeed to your ministry … you’re free!”
The plan is now before the Faith Presbyterian Church session. The session probably will reluctantly agree to it, Schooley said. They could take the presbytery to court, but the church can’t afford it and fears a worse result if a civil court sends the matter to church court, she said. The church soon will have its property appraised to determine its sale value, Schooley said.
One positive that will come out of the sale is the hiring of a new pastor, she said. The church has been without a pastor since March 2006, when the Rev. Dr. Scott Luckey left to become co-pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church in New Orleans.
A new pastor should help bring the church’s membership roll back to its average of around 100, Schooley said. The church had 121 members in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available on the PCUSA’s Web site.
Schooley’s greatest sorrow over the situation is in what she feels was taken for granted. “The PCUSA people that came to see us never, ever spoke to the reason for our leaving,” she said. “They never spoke to defend. All they would say is that, ‘We know that we have a difference, a beef, so you can go. We’re not going to fight about that.’ But I never felt that there was homage given to the Bible or to God over any of this. … There’s been a total lack of anything other than business-as-usual carried on. We could have been a retail store talking to another retail store.”
“It really just came down to the issue of money,” Schooley said. “Here I am, 62 years old, and I want it to be about what is right in God’s eyes. I just feel sad that that’s not an issue for them.”
Patrick Jean is a staff writer for The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at pjean@layman.org.