San Francisco Bay Area’s Menlo Park Presbyterian is one of the country’s largest Presbyterian churches. Or, it was, until members voted to leave the denomination—and pay the $8.89 million cost for doing so—and join a new, fast-rising denomination called ECO, A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. The church is about four thousand members strong, and is led by well-known pastor and author John Ortberg. The church’s reasons for leaving were lengthy, involving differences in mission, identity and core theology.
“This is a major milestone, and not an ending but a beginning,” Ortberg wrote. “There’s a lot yet to come of what Dallas Willard called the unique life of spiritual adventure in living with God daily — entering fully into the good news that Jesus has brought, for ourselves, and for us as a church” …
