Six of 153 churches in Pittsburgh Presbytery are considering leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA) for the much smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Differences over biblical authority and sexual ethics have torn away at the 2.4 million-member mainline denomination and its predecessors for 30 years.

As of now, 151 of its 11,000 congregations, including the six in Allegheny County, are part of the New Wineskins Association of Churches, which adopted a plan last month to help the congregations join the evangelical group, if they choose.

If the evangelical church approves the plan in June, a nongeographic "transitional" presbytery will be created to receive the breakaway churches while they work out full integration into the EPC.

"We are not saying that one is better than the other, but that churches of conscience need to discern and pray over what they should do," said the Rev. Dean Weaver, senior pastor of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in McCandless and national co-moderator of New Wineskins.

He said his own congregation, the Pittsburgh Presbytery's largest with attendance of 1,000, had not made a decision.

"It will depend on how the conversation [with Pittsburgh Presbytery] goes, and how Memorial Park has that conversation internally. We may determine that [the mission of the church] is best served by remaining a member of the PCUSA, or it may be better served by becoming a member of this transitional EPC presbyery," he said.

The Rev. James Mead, pastor to Pittsburgh Presbytery, has spent months urging the presbytery to pray and plan about the best way to respond to congregations that want to leave.

Problems with property
All the property is owned by the denomination, but there has been open discussion at presbytery meetings about finding an fair way to allow the congregations to leave with their property.

"This is a heartbreaking time for me and for many of us," the Rev. Mead said.

The presbytery created three task groups last month to respond to churches that might want to leave.

The Ongoing Conversation Task Group is a forum in which representatives of any congregation that is even toying with leaving can talk with presbytery representatives to see whether their concerns can be resolved.

If the congregation elects to leave, the Negotiated Separation Task Group will try to help it work out an equitable departure, without going to court.

"There are indications that the congregations and the presbytery can, perhaps, come to an equitable agreement about property matters that will seem about right to most presbyters," the Rev. Mead said.

But if a church makes a unilateral move to leave with its property, the presbytery would try to prevent it, he said.

One matter of concern to him and the New Wineskins pastors with whom he has talked is making sure that people who decide to stay with the PCUSA when their congregation votes to leave are cared for.

Local churches that do join the evangelical group might still want to maintain some relationship with Pittsburgh Presbytery, particularly in support of mission projects at home and abroad.

"We could say that we have a common interest with you in the Pittsburgh Project or the Malawi Partnership or in inner-city churches such as Hazelwood. So we want to work in partnership with you," the Rev. Weaver said.

New Wineskins will continue to serve as an umbrella group for churches that leave, those that stay, and like-minded churches in other denominations, the Rev. Weaver said. Like the conservative Episcopalians, the New Wineskins churches are exploring some sort of formal ties with the more conservative churches of the global South, particularly the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, he said. Presbyterian bodies in Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina also have approached New Wineskins to explore alignment, he said.

Far fewer than 10 Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations have declared their intention to leave, but they include some large congregation, church spokesman Jerry Van Marter said.

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church was formed in 1981 by about a dozen mainline Presbyterian churches that were able to leave with their property during the merger that created the PCUSA. It has grown to 182 congregations with 75,000 members. Unlike some other conservative Presbyterian denominations, it allows local option on women's ordination and some flexibility in biblical interpretation.

Openness to women's ordination was important to New Wineskins, which includes female clergy, the Rev. Weaver said. One reason for the nongeographic presbytery was to make sure women would not face barriers.

"We feel very strongly that women's ordination is a biblical principle, and will continue to make that part of our discussion with the EPC. They are grateful for the discussion and have been very gracious about the way it has been approached," the Rev. Weaver said.

Congregations cautious
There are four EPC churches in Pennsylvania, three of them in the Pittsburgh region. But the pastors of at least two local New Wineskins churches have expressed reservations about joining them.

"This church, at this time, has no intention of leaving. There is no plan to leave the denomination," said the Rev. Robert Titus, of the Lebanon Presbyterian Church, West Mifflin, with Sunday attendance of 250.

"We are seeking to be faithful and to seek to reform the denomination from within."

The Rev. Lowell Meek, the pastor of Round Hill Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Borough, wants to stay with the larger denomination, but isn't certain what his congregation will decide. "It's a very complex issue," he said.

Beverly Heights United Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon has long been at odds with the denomination, but nothing has been decided, the Rev. Richard Wolling said.

He is a co-author of the New Wineskins report, and said it expressed his own view that either leaving or staying can be a faithful option. He has been holding briefings and classes for his 425 members for a long time. The most recent drew 150 people.

He expects his congregation to make some kind of decision this spring, but has not decided whether to begin talks with the presbytery's Ongoing Discussion Task Group. "I'm waiting for some clarification on how that process will work," he said.

Despite his past criticism of the Rev. Mead, the Rev. Wolling praised his efforts to address the situation openly.

"It takes away from some of the fear that many have across the church that the presbytery will act in a very heavy-handed way," he said. "There are many churches where these conversations are not done openly because of worry that the presbytery" will establish a commission to seize control of congregations that want to leave, he said.

The Rev. Douglas Rehberg, pastor of Hebron United Presbyterian Church in Penn Hills, said he did not know what his church, which has attendance of 500, would decide.

"It's kind of hard to define where we are at this time," he said. "We are moving toward discernment, but we have a long way to go."