By Bill Brady
Falcon Heights United Church of Christ is in the process of merging with New Life Presbyterian Church of Roseville.
The as-yet unnamed new entity will make its home in the current Falcon Heights Church at the corner of Holton Street and Garden Avenues. The future of the New Life Presbyterian campus at 965 Larpenteur Ave. is still being decided.
The two congregations have been in merger discussions for quite some time. The process got jump-started in July when both congregations voted “by comfortable margins” to approve a plan of union, which set out general principles for a merger and laid out a timeline leading to “the birth of a new church” by this January.
Meanwhile, joint Sunday services are being held periodically, alternating between their two church buildings, and a “Vision Team” composed of New Life and Falcon Heights members, is having conversations with congregants and members of the surrounding neighborhood.
“These are designed to identify neighborhood and congregational assets and insights,” said Pastor Rick King on the Falcon Heights UCC website. “These will go into discerning our new church’s vision (how the world will be different because the church is here), mission (how we bring that vision into being) and values (how we embody that vision and carry out that mission).
“We’re hoping the Holy Spirit reveals a new name for this new church that lets everybody know who we are and what we are about.”
A dual identity
The new church will be dually affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the United Church of Christ. Technically, 50% of its members will be counted as PCUSA, and 50% UCC. Denominational support funds will also be divided 50-50 between the two governing entities.
Mergers across different Protestant denominations are not uncommon. For example, a similar merger is currently underway in Shawano, Wisconsin. On a more global level, the UCC and Presbyterian faiths are in “full communion,” meaning they recognize each other’s sacraments and allow ministers to transfer between branches, which presumably facilitates mergers.
For New Life, an old story
For New Life congregants, the merger process is familiar terrain. New Life was itself the product of a 2014 merger between Knox Presbyterian in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood and North Como Presbyterian on Larpenteur.
New Life Pastor Riz Prakasim helped to steer that process and learned that it naturally involves a sense of loss for both congregations.
“But the beautiful thing about grief is that it is not the end of the story,” he said in a recent YouTube podcast he co-hosted with Pastor King. “We are a resurrection people. When something ends, something else begins to look forward to.”
Bill Brady is copy editor and writer for the Park Bugle. He lives in Falcon Heights.
—–
Photo cutline
Pastors Rick King, of Falcon Heights UCC, and Riz Prakasim, of New Life Presbyterian, discuss details of the upcoming merger in a podcast to their congregations. Submitted photo.
