Nov. 27, 2024

By Rev. Rick King

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Tuesday night, New Life Presbyterian Church’s Session (their governing board) met to process the proceedings of the Town Hall meeting they had last Sunday, and the straw poll they took over the past month in small group meetings and on paper.

Our congregation’s merger task force had agreed to ask New Life for a sign of where their congregation stood on the idea of merging with our church because of some evidence of ambivalence on New Life’s part.

This ambivalence had taken our church’s task force members by surprise, since it was New Life that had first approached us over a year ago about our openness to exploring a merger with them. Because our own, lengthy congregational discernment process eventually led to a unanimous vote at a special congregational meeting held May 18 of this year, we assumed New Life was as “all-in” as we seem to be.

Plus, the joint worship services and other activities have gone very well since the summer, and since September, our youth groups have been meeting together one out of two Sundays per month, and have plans for more joint activities.

But alongside this relationship-building path, there was this other, bumpier path on which New Life’s leaders began to pick up some pockets of dissent among some charter members of North Como Presbyterian, one of the two congregations that merged in 2012 to form New Life. These charter members feel grief over parting with their building into which they’ve poured money, hours of sweat equity, and future hopes over the years. Other congregants have needed to know more about the UCC and how compatible their PCUSA traditions, theology, and governance style will be in a merger with us.

The outcome of Sunday’s Town Hall and Tuesday night’s Session meeting is encouraging but not definitive. More than half of those voting in the straw poll are fully supportive of continuing to pursue a merger with us. At the same time, a portion of those voting are not yet ready and need to know more before getting on board.

As a result, NLPC’s Session deferred until December a decision about a congregational vote on it in mid- to late January. This reluctance is frustrating to us and difficult to understand, but we have decided to wait until we hear more from NLPC before we decide on our own path toward sustainability.

So we ask for your continued prayers—for courage and patience for NLPC, FHC, and our leadership. Because while we thought we’d be further along at this point, nobody ever said it would be simple or easy.