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TechnoratiThe majority of a large southwest Florida church will officially leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Good Friday, following a decision by the regional presbytery to allow their departure.
Covenant Presbyterian Church in Fort Myers, Fla., a congregation of 1,340 members, had voted last month to request dismissal from the PC(USA). The majority, 76 percent, voted in favor of leaving, citing that the denomination is headed in a liberal direction. And 24 percent voted against it.
Peace River Presbytery declared the church divided and denied the congregation's request to leave. The presbytery, however, created an administrative commission to negotiate with church leaders and members who wanted to leave and those who wanted to remain.
Negotiations went smoothly, according to the Rev. Graham Hart, general presbyter of Peace River Presbytery. In a Feb. 28 meeting, the commission agreed to dismiss the majority of the congregation on March 21.
The breakaway group, who has been holding separate worship services since Feb. 10 from those who voted to stay in the PC(USA), has also agreed to begin worshipping at another facility on Easter Sunday. The remaining members will continue to worship at their current building.
Senior Pastor Bill Stephens, who led the effort to leave the PC(USA), chose to start a new church under the more conservative and smaller Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination. His goal was to begin a new church on Easter Sunday. He is calling it New Hope Presbyterian Church.
"We will do it quietly and in a way that will honor Christ," said Stephens, according to The News-Press.
The divided congregation is holding a final joint worship service on Maundy Thursday, March 20, the day marking the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with his disciples.
"We will have a time of praying for each other and asking God to bless each other as we agree to part and go our separate ways," Stephens said, according to The Layman Online, a conservative Presbyterian publication. "Kind of like Paul and Barnabas over John Mark."
"So, we're hoping that will be a reconciliation kind of parting-of-the-ways."
New Hope Presbyterian Church will hold services in a 600-seat sanctuary just two miles south of Covenant Church, Stephens told The Layman.
"We are excited," Stephens said. "We believe God has something God-sized in store for us. My people were willing to push off from the shoreline and out into the deep. I've been humbled and surprised by the huge number of folks that are willing to sign up and go with us. Lots of them are older. There are over 1,100 that say that they're willing to relocate with us. It's just huge."
In recent years, a growing number of congregations voted to leave the PC(USA) and join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which has welcomed the churches to receive full membership. Membership in the 3-million member PC(USA), meanwhile, has continued to drop.
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