89,990 people joined the PCUSA in 2010 and 151,037 left. Last year only 12 new churches were started in the whole denomination.

The first presentation at the Fellowship of Presbyterians Gathering asked “Why?”

Lead by Jim Singleton, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., “Why a ‘Fellowship of Presbyterians,’” gave a brief history of the movement and some of its goals and plans.

Singleton said there are approximately 1,900 people attending the Gathering in Minneapolis, Minn. He said that some are here because they are passionate, scared, dubious or curious. “Some think this might be a very special time – like a karios moment,” Singleton said. “Others hope it might not be.”

Singleton spoke of the seven men on the Fellowship’s steering committee: “While we aren’t prophets, there are seven of us laboring very hard.”

The seven include: John Crosby, Christ Presbyterian in Edina, Minn.; Rich Kannwischer, St. Andrews Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif.; Tae-Hyung Ko of Good Shepherd Presbyterian in Rowland Heights, Calif.; Vic Pentz of Peachtree Presbyterian in Atlanta, Ga.; David Peterson of Memorial Drive Presbyterian in Houston, Texas; David Swanson of First Presbyterian in Orlando, Fla.; and Singleton.

“A significant amendment [10A] passed in 2010 in this same city last July and the last vote needed to ratify it was by the Presbytery of Twin Cities [also in Minnesota]. … for those of us who began the Fellowship, it was a signal of something larger yet, another part of the erosion of the way we understand Biblical authority.”

Singleton said that “my friends on the other side of the church truly believe that they too affirm Biblical authority …They are using a different set of interpretive tools.”

“Something changed between us long ago. We use the same words but they mean something different,” Singleton said. “Some of my progressive friends say the [ordination] change is a minor change and we will get used to it.” He said it had also been called just a polity change but it is a “polity door that opens the way for a behavior that to one group seems inclusive and to another unrighteous.”

He said “many of us we feel that we are now in effect in a box canyon. A wall is at the end of the canyon and we are not sure how we are going to move because we are at a dead end.”

In describing the creation of the Fellowship of Presbyterians, Singleton said that after last summer’s General Assembly, a “group of us — just old friends,” began to meet discussing the fact that “something is different now and what can we do?”

“A group of us decided to stick our necks out and offer to lead at a time in American culture that anyone who offers to lead gets debunked and pulled down,” Singleton said. “We have asked others for help … We are just a movement. We will not be constituted until a January meeting.”

Singleton said that the Fellowship is “very grateful for every renewal group that has been at work … the difference is we no longer expect to renew the PCUSA by out voting” the progressive Presbyterians.

“We believe that God is up to something different and we need to discern and ask you to help us discern what it is,” he said. “Battling for control is not the solution.”

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