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This story online: http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2007/07416.htm 07416 July 11, 2007 Stated Clerk issues statement to Presbyterians concerning latest Vatican declaration Kirkpatrick says Catholic leadership has 'mischaracterized' faith by Presbyterian News Service LOUISVILLE - Clifton Kirkpatrick, General Assembly stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has issued an open letter to Presbyterians joining other churches and ecumenical groups in questioning a recent pronouncement by the Vatican that Protestant churches "are not churches in the proper sense." Kirkpatrick said the July 10 statement, which the Vatican said was endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI, "mischaracterizes our faith" and "reopens questions of Christian unity..." The full...

Community Presbyterian Church in Danville bucks a nationwide trend for the denomination: Its strapping 2,225-member congregation is stretching the seams of its suburban campus. Five hundred children play relay games and climb rope walls in Vacation Bible Camp. About 250 adults sip latte in each session of the video cafe. Elsewhere in the East Bay, even Presbyterian churches whose congregations top the national average of 209 are losing more members than they are gaining. Grace Presbyterian in Walnut Creek lost nearly 200 members from 1996 to 2006. Community Presbyterian in Pittsburg, once a congregation of 180, dropped to 117 during...

Burrows Presbyterian Church will hold its regular worship at 10:30 a.m. in the historic Pleasant Hill Church at Keeps Creek on Sunday. The church is one of three that came together to form the "new" Burrows Presbyterian Church in 1909. The three were the Rock Creek Presbyterian (known locally as The Brown Church because its exterior was painted brown) the Woodville Presbyterian Church and the Pleasant Hill Church. Of the three historic structures, only the Pleasant Hill Church at Keeps Creek exists today. "Our congregation feels it is very important to honor its heritage by holding worship in the Pleasant...

Citing more than 30 years of growing dissatisfaction with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and one of its predecessor denominations, Kishwaukee Community Presbyterian Church in Stillman Valley, Ill., has scheduled a congregational vote June 24 on whether to request dismissal from the PCUSA. The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Eric Geil, expects an overwhelming majority of the 407-member congregation to vote for the dismissal request. -snip- In exchange for being dismissed with its property, the church has made a $50,000 "friendship offering" that represents five years of per-capita payments to the presbytery, Geil said. Presbytery trustees will discuss the offer, he...

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. -snip- When a final dismissal plan is agreed to by the presbytery and the church, it will free Faith Presbyterian Church to seek...

With its pastor citing "25 years of accumulated frustration" with the Presbyterian Church (USA), First Presbyterian Church in Quincy, Ill., has scheduled a congregational vote June 24 on whether to request dismissal from the denomination. The session made a unanimous recommendation for the resolution at its meeting April 16. The June 24 vote will ask the congregation to resolve to ask Great Rivers Presbytery to dismiss the church to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Bakker said he received a letter two weeks ago from the presbytery stating that if his church is dismissed with its property, the presbytery wants $550,000 in...

Leading officials from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) say a report by a conservative group of Presbyterians "mischaracterizes" the denomination's positions on controversial matters. The PC(USA)’s stated clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, and its General Assembly Council executive director, Linda Valentine, addressed a letter to leaders within the denomination clarifying the church's stance on biblical authority, the singular saving Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Trinity among other issues. The letter, dated June 12, and an attached document deals with a February strategy report released by the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) – a network of dissident Presbyterians in the...

- snip - First Presbyterian has tasked a denominational affairs committee with weighing the merits of switching to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a denomination of 180 congregations and 75,000 members as contrasted with the 2.3 million members and 11,000 churches of the Presbyterian Church (USA). -snip- In November, First Presbyterian got a court judgment determining that its property at 763 North Blvd. belongs to the church, not the presbytery.

A Huntsville, Ala., church can leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property, thanks to the resolution of a lawsuit brought by the church against North Alabama Presbytery. But the settlement comes with a price for Central Presbyterian Church: $250,000 to be paid to the presbytery by the end of 2010 – including $100,000 within the next 30 days, when the agreement officially closes.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost 46,544 more members in 2006, continuing an ongoing decline that has seen the loss of 225,308 members in just the past five years. Membership in the denomination dropped from 2,313,662 in 2005 to 2,267,118 in 2006, according to annual statistics released by the Office of the General Assembly. That membership total is a drop of almost half – 45.7 percent – of the 4,254,597 members it had in 1965, the year that the PCUSA and its predecessor denominations reached their highest total numbers of members.

Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in McCandless, the largest church in Pittsburgh Presbytery, voted 951-93 to ask to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to join the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Negotiations may begin this week to allow the church to keep its property. The presbytery must approve any settlement. At least 761 votes were needed to seek dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA). Memorial Park has more than 1,600 members, but the presbytery and the congregation agreed on a smaller number of active, available members from which to calculate the majority needed for the vote. "I feel humbled...

The Ohio attorney general's office has sided with Eastminster Presbytery in a lawsuit brought against it by a church seeking to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property. The response filed by Attorney General Marc Dann seeks a summary judgment declaring that Hudson Presbyterian Church in Hudson, Ohio, holds all of its property and assets in a charitable trust that must "provide the public with a PCUSA-style church with the attendant community benefits of such a church." The summary judgment, Dann argues, also should declare that Hudson Presbyterian Church "may not apply the corpus of that trust for a...

Both sides in the case of a Washington County church that obtained a temporary restraining order against Washington Presbytery have agreed to work out ground rules that will enable them to negotiate further about when and how Peters Creek Presbyterian Church can leave the Presbyterian Church (USA). Although both sides must first approve the details, "they promised not to take a vote to leave without 10 days' notice and we promised not to remove the pastor or [lay governing board] without 10 days' notice," said the Rev. David Bleivik, executive presbyter of Washington Presbytery. Consequently, a hearing scheduled for yesterday...

Expressing "deep regret and sorrow," the Presbytery of East Tennessee has voted overwhelmingly to dismiss the 1,965-member Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church with all its property. "Considering and weighing all factors, including the absence of any identifiable PCUSA remnant in Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church," an administrative review committee stated in its report to the presbytery, the committee "concludes that the Presbytery of East Tennessee should, with deep regret and sorrow, dismiss Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church with all its property, real or personal, without condition." *** 2....

A small congregation in Mississippi has been granted its request to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (USA) with its property. But the dismissal comes with a price: a $30,000 gift to be "placed in an appropriate fund," according to St. Andrew Presbytery. By voice vote, presbytery commissioners agreed at their stated meeting May 1 to dismiss the 94-member French Camp Presbyterian Church in French Camp, Miss. The vote comes nearly nine months after the session made a written request to the presbytery to be "graciously" released with its property. The French Camp church will be received into the smaller,...

Every Sunday morning, two diverse congregations converge on Wilde Lake Interfaith Center in Columbia. The entrance, said the Rev. R. Whitfield "Whitty" Bass, looks like Grand Central Station. "The interaction at the narthex and the energy of it, that's just like a huge intersection," said Bass, pastor of St. John United Methodist/Presbyterian Church. "It has its great points and its weak points." The St. John United Methodist/Presbyterian Church shares the center with the St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Congregation, which includes a large, independent Spanish congregation that meets separately with Masses in Spanish

Within the Episcopal Church, there is an ongoing story of litigation, most of which is filed by revisionist diocesan bishops and directed against churches wishing to leave the Episcopal Church. Stacy Sauls, bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, chairs a committee concerned with how to deal with property issues in the Episcopal Church, and how to fight against the "horrible" American Anglican Council and Anglican Communion Network. It turns out that the Episcopal Church, in the spirit of ecumenism, is secretly working with the Presbyterians, who have been at this a little longer than the Episcopal Church has. In fact,...

St. Andrew Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is about to authorize an administrative commission to direct the legal counsel of its defense against a member church's property ownership lawsuit. The seven-member commission, whose appointment is scheduled for approval at the presbytery's May 1 stated meeting, also would be granted "any other such responsibilities as the presbytery might assign at a future time." Also at the May 1 meeting, the presbytery is scheduled to approve using up to $100,000 from a reserve fund to pay legal fees in its defense against the litigation brought by First Presbyterian Church in Corinth,...

MADISON — An era is ending in Madison Sunday. First Presbyterian Church is having its final service after 137 years of Sunday morning worship. “We lost people,” said Darlene Barrett, who has been a First Presbyterian member for 62 years. “Our members have passed away and (there’s) no young people.” Actually, the town is growing — from 2,135 in 1990 to 2,367 in 2000 — but that hasn’t meant new members for the church. “This is a Hispanic community now, they have their own church,” Barrett said. Madison is one of several Nebraska towns that have seen dramatic changes in...

Mayor Becky Miller A show of support for Carrollton Mayor Becky Miller and other City Council members who have advocated for diversity is planned for Tuesday, April 17, at 6:30 p.m. at Carrollton City Hall. The event is being organized in response to a petition presented to the Carrollton City Council by a group of residents who opposed the mayor’s appearance in the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade in Dallas last September. The mayor and Councilwoman Pat Malone participated in the parade last year at the request of The Carrollton Project, a group that promotes LGBT equality. The petition...