Posted on 10/28/2011 3:21:31 AM PDT by Cronos
One of the oldest Presbyterian churches in Syracuse — First Presbyterian Church United – this month decided it will close in April 2012.
The Near West Side church, founded in 1826 and located at 620 W. Genesee St. since 1904, will have its last service on Easter, April 8, 2012.
The church has been steadily losing members over the years and is financially strapped, said Nancy Wind, associate for congregational life at the church. There are about 100 church members; of those about 40 attend worship services, she said.
“We’ve been running a deficit budget for at least a decade ,” Wind said. “So instead of waiting for the inevitable, we decided to be responsible by deciding to close before we run out of all our endowment funds.”
The church held a special congregational meeting Oct. 2 where members voted 32 to 2 to request that the church be dissolved by the Presbytery of Cayuga Syracuse. A final celebration of the life of First Presbyterian Church United (with East Genesee Presbyterian Church) will be held May 4, 5 and 6, 2012.
...
At its peak in the 1960s, the church had close to 1,000 members. Ten years ago, that had dropped to about 300. “We lose at least 10 to 12 members every year,” Sullivan said.
..Rhebergen estimated there are five Presbyterian churches in the city. South Presbyterian and Onondaga Valley merged several years ago, and First Presbyterian merged with East Genesee Presbyterian. The presbytery will have to decide what to do with the church buildings.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
Sad news Alex
They just need to be more inclusive, they need women clergy, they need to approve of abortion and homosexuality.
Oh, I forgot!
The little Baptist church, I attend has about 60 active members, not that much different in size from the church mentioned and we are financially sound. What makes the difference?
Not at the Presbyterian PCA churches. PC-USA has gone the way of the World.
Anyone who wants a breath of fresh air from political correctness is welcome in the PCA.
true.
Interesting point — question, does your pastor exclusively work as a pastor? And does that give him enough to live on? I ask that seriously. Imho 60 people can support one pastor
sorry, but that was funny — anyone who wants a breath of fresh air from PC is welcome in the PCA :)
He’s been Pastor for 43 years. He held another full time job until he retired and paid his own way to earn a doctorate. We currently pay him $26,000 per year and there’s no parsonage. The only other service person we pay is a janitorial service.
It's so true. Political Correctness (PC) - being Anti-Christian - is strangling many of our churches. It takes on many forms.
The worst is denying the inerrancy and authority of the Holy Scriptures. Next it winks at anti-Christian behavior, like adultery, fornication (sex outside of marriage), homosexuality.
It turns up the nose at the idea of personal holiness and godly living.
But worst of all, it hates Holy matrimony (one man covenentally married to one woman under God for life).
When will America's churches WAKE UP and throw off the Politically Correct Noose and return to Christ Alone?
But taken to extremes...
Does the PCA ordain women as ministers/pastors?
26 is ok for a single guy, but for a family it could be tight and coupled in with the maintenance of an old building, it can cost quite a bit I’m guessing.
No. The PCA requires the offices of ordained elders and deacons be limited to men only.
He has a full pension from Komatsu Dresser Industries, his wife is a retired school teacher and he has social security plus the church pay, they do quite well, he has turned down raises in the past.
I also believe that 43 years in the same Baptist church is unusual.
I stood before the group and reminded them of the scriptural guidelines regarding homosexuality. Then I said that when a Christian Church deliberately and knowingly adopts guidelines which run directly against the inspired Word of God they cease to be a church, because they openly defy the teachings of their foundational documentation...or more to the point, openly defy God.
That is the point at which they become something which could be better defined as a cult.
Needless to say that this was also the point at which I and my family left the Presbyterian church.
If you look at the article, you’ll see that the church is pretty much a small cathedral. I’m sure the costs of maintenance are ten times what they are for an ordinary church, maybe more.
Probably the cost of living in the area, maintenance fees, and the amount of revenue brought in.
The Methodist church to which I belong, a downtown church that was started in the nineteenth century is also struggling. Most of its members are 50 or older, and Sunday worship services average only abut 100.
IMHO, you're confusing decent behavior and manners in public with speech restriction. You cannot have anything like PC floating around and preached without it eventually getting to the point where political speech rather than slanders become the focus. Years ago you never heard people using racial slurs in polite company even though they might use them at work or when talking with a friend. In fact, one of the things that used to make a couple of my friends more ticked off than anything else was how friggin polite everyone could be while making sure you knew where the appropriate restroom and water fountain were.
Every so often the Southern Baptist Churches used to all preach a sermon against using hateful names for others not like you or less fortunate than you. Everyone understood that the Pastor was referring to the use of the nword and things like, "lint head", and redneck. Sure, some people did anyway, but then they found themselves less and less welcome in polite company. IOW, society policed itself.
Among black folks, for example, there were terms (not just the nword, either) black folks now commonly apply to one another that if you used them would absolutely mark you as someone "nice folks" didn't want in their home, around their kids, or in their employ. You friends would let you know about those things, too, because they didn't want to be embarrassed around their parents by some white kid their parents were bound to be suspicious of anyway. All you have to do is study history and to realize very quickly that restraint of speech only restrains speech that those in power want restricted and has very little if anything to do with making society less threatening, more friendly, more accepting, or anything else. Societies where the members want to have a civil society do quite nicely without the government dictating anything to do with speech, thank you. In addition, in every case where government intervenes in something so basic as speech, taking that inch just convinces government it's the ruler.
JMHO
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