Initially ordained in the PCUS in 1970, John Holmes served as a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America from 1973 until 2005 when he and the church he pastored withdrew from Pittsburgh Presbytery for independency.

Years ago, Rev. John Holmes was pastoring a church in Tennessee when two members volunteered as tutors at a nearby state home for boys with mental retardation.

The women were not permitted to discuss their Christian beliefs during tutoring time, but they were allowed to take the boys on outings. So they approached the elders of the church with a proposal: If they arranged transportation and set up a special Sunday school room, could they bring the boys to church on Sundays?

At the official session meeting, the elders voted yes. But the next morning, Rev. Holmes got a call from the chairman.

“We had another meeting after the meeting,” the man said. “We’re not going to have those boys in our church.”

“Why not?” the stunned minister countered.

“We’re trying to build this church,” the man answered. “What if some nice family came in here for the first time — what would they think if they saw those boys?”

Rev. Holmes answered, “They’d probably think we were real Christians.”

He left that church soon thereafter and went on to pastor other churches. But that experience planted the seed that would eventually become his current church, A Restoration Church in Peters, Washington County.

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