Once Again into the Fray

This is long but I’m tired of talking about it. I’m writing all this to make three points:

• East River Church has conducted itself with complete transparency on the issue of being credo-communion-only from day one.

• The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches ISN'T kicking East River Church out of the denomination.

• Despite a few online hotheads, almost everyone in the CREC has a charitable spirit and a desire to see this all worked out.

1. We knew that paedo-communion was the majority position in the CREC when we entered. That’s why we asked if there was room for a credo-communion-only church. The then presiding minister of Augustine Presbytery thought there was. If he had said otherwise, that would have been the end of the conversation. I told him I wasn’t coming to change the CREC. I told him I didn’t want to fight about communion. practice so long as we had the freedom to follow the Westminster Standards. He thought we could make it work. So, we moved forward.

2. The presiding minister of a presbytery is just one man. He doesn’t have the authority to bring in a church. That is a decision made by the local presbytery. Before a church can become a full-member church (aka “being seated”), it must have two elders, be financially stable, and have existed for two years. Hence, East River became a mission church and entered into a two-year candidate process to join Augustine Presbytery of the CREC. This time allows a candidate church to get their membership criteria in order but also for other churches in the presbytery time to get to know the candidate church. During this period, I also called several different ministers in the CREC (including several presiding ministers) to make sure that, as the then Book of Procedures said, we “do not have to adopt or practice” of paedocommunion with transfer members. They agreed that is what it allowed.

3. Before being voted on in Augustine Presbytery, we submitted our constitution and bylaws to the presbytery for review. This was the same explicitly credo-communion-only document that had been posted on our public website for at least a year at that point. I came ready to defend my position on the floor of the presbytery. Thankfully, it was a warm and friendly crowd. The question of how we would deal with transfer members did come up on the floor of the presbytery. I explained to them our practice just as it was laid out in our constitution and bylaws. A church can only be seated by a vote of two-thirds of the presbytery. We were voted in by an overwhelming majority. I know that there were men there who disagreed with our practice but voted “yes” because they thought it was allowed by the Book of Procedure.

4. Almost immediately after East River was seated as a member church, there was a protracted email conversation between many elders within the CREC. I was asked to explain our practice. I did just as I had done in our constitution and bylaws and on the floor of the presbytery. The core of that email conversation centered on what I call “sacramental reciprocity.” It was a good conversation and, as I recall, it was carried on by all in a charitable spirit. But there was a real issue. They now had a credo-communion-only full-member church and had a lot of Baptist churches knocking on the door. The key question that arose was “What is the basis of our communion?” It was a good question that needed answering.

5. A sacramental cooperation committee was formed to research, discuss, and offer some possible resolutions to the Church Council. I was on that committee. Again, that committee was full of brothers who carried on their work in a charitable spirit. We had real principled disagreements but had zero problems treating each other with respect. It was an honor to work with those men. The committee had to figure out how to resolve ambiguities in the Book of Procedures. I argued in favor of making no major changes, continuing to live in tension, and recommended that presiding ministers screen incoming churches for hotheads. In the end, we provided the Council with several different options that ran the spectrum from my recommendation to being a purely paedo-communion denomination. I was clear that we would likely leave if we were required to practice paedo-communion.

6. These options were discussed at the 2023 meeting of the Church Council. I had agreed to speak at the Church Council on the topic of “Right Time and Place.” However, I pulled out because it became clear to me that we may need to transition out of the CREC. It seemed hypocritical to speak on that subject given that reality. It ended up being a good thing. I was unable to travel to Council last year due to a mixture of things. I did get a lot of texts from friends in attendance. One included a link to an Instagram video of a discussion between Council members on how the vote would affect our church. They were clearly concerned with its impact on us and, again, charitably trying to find a way to mitigate the situation.

7. The position that the Council landed on was a compromise position. The CREC would continue to welcome credo-baptist and credo-communion churches but they would need to be willing to receive any CREC transfer member in their baptismal and communicant status. Therefore, the CREC is a shared communion of churches in that, among other things, it recognizes the rulings of all members church as they relate to the sacraments. I get the logic.

8. This was problematic for East River given our explicit credo-communion-only doctrinal and constitutional commitments. The Book Procedures allows the following: “If a church’s standing in the CREC is potentially affected by the process of confessional revision, that church has five years within which to make its first appeal to Presbytery.” We made that appeal to both the Church Council and our presiding minister (i.e. our presbytery) last November. Again, everyone was warm towards us. I stayed quiet about the issue outside of private conversations.

9. Our initial desire was to be grandfathered in under the original terms that we were previously accepted as a full-member church. There was some debate about whether or not being grandfathered was something allowed by the constitution of the CREC and a power given to the Council of the CREC. In January of this year, the CREC released a promotional video for the denomination that emphasized the “opening of the table for children.” This took us by surprise. While we knew the direction the CREC was heading given the recent Council meeting, we were hoping to have our status resolved before paedo-communion as an expressed emphasis became a major push. That is I started talking more openly about the issue online around this time.

10. Consequently, I did recommend that the Council give us a set time by which we needed to comply with the new requirements. I did this because grandfathering seemed to still be debatable and I didn’t want our church kept in limbo for much longer. We had paused our church planting efforts during the meeting of the sacramental cooperation committee. We didn’t want our church plants to share a confused status. Anyhow, the Council did grant us my request and gave us until the meeting of the Council in 2026. We intended to use that time to launch Boniface Fellowship as a regional support for like-minded churches, including our church plants. We also decided that we would begin to explore other denominational possibilities. That is the current situation.

11. The recent online debate was, in part, a reaction to our presiding minister, Uriesou Brito, making some strong statements on the CREC commitments and trajectory. I don’t agree with everything he said. However, I do think Pastor Brito was trying to make clear that churches like East River aren’t being kicked out. We are a small minority that is allowed to stay in the CREC under all I just laid out. Also, some would still like to see us grandfathered in or there be some other concession.

12. There are hotheads on all sides who would like to see this become a public debacle for a variety of reasons. Too bad. It’s not going to happen on my account. At least not any more than it has. Too many pastors in the CREC are good friends. That isn’t changing. However, there are serious differences and we need to figure out the best long-term solution for everyone. We will. We all have exciting local work to do.