Why would any church want to become part of a denomination that owns the property they accumulate over the years? Is there some benefit from the PCUSA the church gets in its early years which makes an association like this beneficial when the church is first starting out?
>>Why would any church want to become part of a denomination that owns the property they accumulate over the years? Is there some benefit from the PCUSA the church gets in its early years which makes an association like this beneficial when the church is first starting out?
The Presbyterian type of church makes it part of a larger church. For 300 years, the Presbyterian church in the USA was one or two denominations that eventually reined to become the PCUSA. Since the idea of a mainline church turning into what they’ve become in the last 40 years was simply preposterous, no one had a problem with joining under the property rules.
When the PCA was formed in the 1979s, one of the defining rules of the new denomination was that each congregation owns its own property. This way, if the leftists manage to get their hooks into the denomination leadership, the congregations can get out fast, leaving only an empty Progressive she’ll behind.
“Is there some benefit from the PCUSA the church gets in its early years which makes an association like this beneficial when the church is first starting out?”
Um - free land.
The demonination also helps with loans for the buildings, and may help pay for some of that cost as well. Does make it a mess when the church wants to leave though. In downtown Seattle there is a PCUSA church that wants to leave - but not willing to pay the price on the expensive piece of prime real estate.
I think most churches leave with not much of a problem and negotiate a reasonable price with the PCUSA.