I received an email the other day from someone who has been following the issues that have been going on in our church, and wondering whether anything has happened since my last post eight months ago. I haven’t been writing, because there really hasn’t been much to write about. Literally, nothing had happened for months since our trial began in September.

After eight months, we decided to write up a new complaint about the lack of any action from the Session. In that complaint, we made the following request of the Session:

Therefore, we respectfully request that the Session drop all charges against the Accused and publicly reinstate them to a place within the congregation where they are free to exercise their spiritual gifts; and that the congregation be instructed to regard the Accused as not guilty of all charges, and

Further, that in the spirit of Book of Church Order Appendix I, we request the Session engage an independent mediator or mediators, preferably from Philadelphia Metro West Presbytery, and experienced in biblical peacemaking, to meet with both parties to resolve the issues and conflict before them.

Actually, I should probably give a little bit of background. There had some comments in passing from our Clerk of Session that the Session might be willing to bring in a mediator from the Presbytery to try to help out during our apparent impasse. I wasn’t aware of any impasse, but we liked the idea of a mediator, so we put that request into our complaint.

When the Clerk of Session received our complaint, he commented that the mediation process was now “moot”, since our complaint “prompts the Session to go to trial without any more delay”. He then gave a list of fifteen dates through June and July, and wanted to know our availability to continue the trial.

Anyway, apparently our complaint reminded the Session that they had members on trial for perversion, so the trial may actually end up proceeding. Sadly, there really is no way to predict what is going to happen, but we’ll let you know. Please continue to keep the situation in your prayers.