Joan Johns, clerk of session for Kingman, said the move away from the PCUSA was one needed for the church. “Ours is an older congregation, a little long in the tooth to put it one way, but we still believe in the Bible and the way it was written,” Johns said. “When it was said that all theologies are valid, that told us the Bible no longer was important. We want to belong to an organization that believes in the Bible and felt (the PCUSA’s) stance was not acceptable anymore.”

An Arizona congregation seeking to honor God is celebrating its 50^th anniversary after leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Kingman Presbyterian Church, located in the rural northwestern region of Arizona nears its border with California and Nevada, was dismissed from the PCUSA during an April 27 meeting of the Grand Canyon Presbytery and became part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) as a transitional member upon final payment and completion of required paperwork.

The 91-member church, which was founded in 1963, spent about 18 months going through the dismissal process after making the request to the presbytery in September 2011, about the same time the pastor retired, leaving the congregation to navigate the journey under the leadership of its session.

Joan Johns, clerk of session for Kingman, said the move away from the PCUSA was one needed for the church.

“Ours is an older congregation, a little long in the tooth to put it one way, but we still believe in the Bible and the way it was written,” Johns said. “When it was said that all theologies are valid, that told us the Bible no longer was important. We want to belong to an organization that believes in the Bible and felt (the PCUSA’s) stance was not acceptable anymore.”

Johns added that changes in the Book of Order that took away autonomy from local churches and placed restrictions on what they could and could not do also factored prominently in the decision to depart the PCUSA.

“We had been thinking about this for quite a while,” she said. “We looked at the direction the PCUSA was going, and many members were unhappy about it. We didn’t want to make any rash decisions, and our session members were the last to come on board. We wanted to follow the Bible, and it just became more and more apparent that the PCUSA was getting farther away from that.

“It’s very sad, really. The PCUSA has a wonderful history but has taken a wrong turn and is no longer honoring God in what it is doing.”

Read More