As we enter into the final year of my transitional work at the Kirk, many decisions concerning the future of this congregation are progressing as our session has decided (and the congregation has approved) to build a new manse for the future pastors of the Kirk, and to sell the current manse once the new one is completed. With this in mind, I thought it would be a helpful reminder of how our polity is ordered in decision-making processes.

As a Presbyterian Church, we order our life in the church according to foundational beliefs about
church government. These beliefs were settled for Reformed Churches during the height of the Protestant Reformation in the 16 th century; they include how decisions for the church are made even today. Unlike our Baptist and Congregational counterparts, every member does not vote on all decisions. Unlike our Catholic, Episcopal and Methodist counterparts, we are not subject to every decision being made by a single head of the church, a District Superintendent, or a denominational council. In ECO (A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians), each local church elects elders to serve on session as ruling elders, to seek God’s guidance in making most of the decisions for the local church. In doing so, the congregation agrees to abide by those decisions the elders make as they seek God’s wisdom and will for the church and not through pressure from individuals in the congregation.
We do not elect people to do our will, but to seek and do God’s will. This is why it is so important to elect spiritually mature believers to these positions of great responsibility, knowing that God will judge those who try to go their own way and do their own thing in his church.

The elders of the local churches send commissioners to the national gatherings to elect synod members who will make most of the decisions for our denomination, including the hiring of those to run the day-to-day operations of the denomination. It’s important to note that ECO has taken our former PCUSA Churches from an over 300-page Book of Order to only 43 pages of denominational regulations comprised of our Essential Tenets, Polity, and Rules of Discipline, handing most of the decision-making for our churches back to the purview of the local church. This way of decision making, the local churches, through their elected elders, comprise the foundation of how the church as a whole makes most major decisions. Those responsibilities are delegated to mature believers who have agreed to seek God for his will and abide by the basic rules of our polity in their decision making. The exception for the local church is that the whole membership of the congregation has the responsibility to vote for a called pastor and for the buying and selling of church property.

Even though the whole congregation votes on calling a pastor and property, it is still up to the elected session of ruling elders to set the basic parameters and details for these decisions. The congregational vote is to either approve the call of the pastor or the sale or buying of property, or to disapprove. If the congregation disapproves, the session must reassess the decisions it has made, seek God for where they have made mistakes, and come back to the congregation for a vote on the item at hand before it
can proceed.

One other thing I think you should know: This congregation voted to leave the PCUSA over 10 years ago and to affiliate with ECO. With that decision, certain arrangements were made with the PCUSA Presbytery of Tropical Florida for our congregation to keep this property, including paying them an initial sum and signing a revision clause, stating that if the Kirk left ECO or another Reformed body within a certain time period, the property would automatically revert back to the Presbytery of Tropical
Florida. There are 4 years left on the revision clause. This makes our membership in ECO very important, not only for the wonderful covering it gives us, but also because the ownership of this churches property is at stake until the revision clause is fulfilled.

It is my sincere hope that each of our Covenant Partners (Members) will take the time to study our 43 pages of regulations, including our Essential Tenets, Polity, and Rules of Discipline so you will be able to better understand why we do things the way we do and to better equip you to serve Jesus in the life of this congregation. If in your studies, you find things you don’t understand or would like clarification on, please feel free to meet with me and I will be happy to talk with you about them.