As your brothers and sisters in Christ, we want to update you on our efforts to discuss, pray, and humbly discern God’s leading for MPPC regarding our affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (USA)(PCUSA).

We have been working diligently and have made significant progress, as detailed in the timeline below. We have felt the Holy Spirit leading us through this period, and we appreciate your patience as we seek to be obedient to God’s timing and guidance, and not our own. We are now preparing for a time of greater engagement with both the Presbytery and our congregation. As we do so, there are two recent Session actions that we’d like to share:
 

1. In August, 2010, Session voted to request that the San Francisco Presbytery (Presbytery) form a Presbytery Engagement Team (PET), under its new “Gracious Dismissal” policy, to engage with us regarding our denominational concerns. In November, 2010, the Presbytery voted to suspend the “Gracious Dismissal” policy without forming a PET for MPPC. MPPC’s Session still seeks to engage with the Presbytery to learn more about our options. Toward this end, on August 16, 2011, our Session voted unanimously to appoint an ad hoc Denominational Engagement committee of staff and elders and to request that the Presbytery engage with this committee to discuss MPPC’s denominational affiliation with PCUSA. The Denominational Engagement committee’s work is to clarify options for the congregation as it discerns God’s call on MPPC.

 

2. While Session persists in its efforts to engage with the Presbytery, we also have moved forward in clarifying what we believe and what affiliation structure would best serve these beliefs. This has been a meaningful, blessed time of prayer and fellowship. On August 16, Session voted unanimously to adopt an “Affirmation of Vision, Mission, Values, and Beliefs." We are energized by our sense of God’s leading and are excited about the coming ministry year. We encourage you to read in its entirety this affirmation of the beliefs that have guided and undergirded our church since its beginnings almost 140 years ago.

 

We also want to share that on August 25-26, MPPC representatives joined about 1,900 people from 830 churches at the gathering of a new organization, the Fellowship of Presbyterians (http://www.fellowship-pres.org), for PCUSA churches to discuss ideas for “Christ-honoring change.” The Fellowship is interested in “forming a new way for our congregations to relate, recapturing more of what it means to be the body of Christ.” The Fellowship is developing a new Reformed denomination outside of the PCUSA, along with other options for congregations to consider. We will keep you posted as this new organization develops.

Thank you for your continued prayers and faithfulness. 

Session of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, September 2011