“A whole group…has petitioned the synod for an administrative review of the entire Presbytery. Their concern is that the way Minnema was dismissed “didn’t follow our personnel policy.” It’s all part of how “the Presbytery has not been conducting itself in a manner consistent with, or appropriate to, our polity, our form of government.”

The Rev. Steve Minnema has been reinstated as interim executive of the regional body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) – which had fired him suddenly in early November – pending a review of that dismissal.

Minnema recently won a stay of his termination as executive presbyter of the Presbytery of the Northern Plains, based in Grand Forks, from the Twin-Cities-based Synod of Lakes and Prairies.

But it’s unlikely he ever will really do the job again, whatever the outcome of his appeal, said a leader of the Presbytery, who said it would be “too awkward” even for Minnema to keep regular office hours during his appeal.

A Presbytery committee will respond to Minnema’s complaint by next week and send the issue back to the Synod of Lakes and Prairies.

Meanwhile, a group of pastors and lay people across the Presbytery has raised a separate complaint with the Synod that Minnema’s firing is only the latest example of bad leadership in the Presbytery.

It’s all part of what church officials acknowledge is an unusual conflict within the highly ordered denomination that touts its polity as a model for American government.

Minnema had been appointed in mid-2009 as interim executive presbyter of the Presbytery, which is the regional body of 62 congregations across North Dakota, northwest Minnesota and one congregation in Montana.

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