8 January 1978 A.D. Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Archivist. “January 8: Coral Ridge Presbyterian
Church.” This Day in Presbyterian History. 8 Jan 2015. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2015/01/january-8-coral-ridge-presbyterian-church/.
Accessed 8 Jan 2015.
January 8: Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
Prestigious Congregation Votes into the Presbyterian Church in America
Coral
Ridge Presbyterian Church has had a remarkable history. The Fort
Lauderdale, Florida congregation began
in an elementary school cafeteria in 1959 with forty seven people under the
ministry of D. James Kennedy.
Graduating
class at Columbia Theological Seminary, 1959. From left to right Masaya Hibino,
Seth Q. Shaver, Sam B. Laine, David B. Pedersen, Clarence D. Weaver, Jr. and D. James Kennedy.
Preaching
his first year of ministry in what he claimed were the fifty-two best sermons
ever heard by an American congregation, the attendance dropped from forty seven
to seventeen! Upon receiving an invitation from a rural pastor in Georgia
to come and preach a week of evangelistic meetings, he gladly accepted,
anything to get away from the fiasco then in the making in Florida.
Upon arriving in Georgia, the rural pastor, Kennedy Smartt, informed him that
in addition to the public proclamation of the Word, Jim Kennedy would be going
door to door in the area to personally present the gospel. This badly
scared Jim Kennedy. He used to tell people that he couldn’t do personal evangelism
because of a “back problem.” If pressed, the “back problem” was a yellow streak
down the back.
After
a bungled attempt at the first “cold” door, the young minister then watched
Pastor Smartt lead the person to a profession of faith. In fact, over the
next week, he watched Kennedy Smartt lead soul after soul to Christ. What
he didn’t know at the time was that the two rural congregations had prayed for
the salvation of specific people for two years. Further, just prior to
the evangelistic meetings, a young banker has dropped dead. That fact,
plus the prayers, made the diagnostic question which began with “Suppose you
were to die today,” suddenly real to every citizen in the area. D. James
Kennedy would return to his young dying congregation with a new
emphasis
in soul-winning.
[»
Construction of the stainless steel spire, with cross being hoisted in place »]
All
was not well however with their membership in the Presbyterian Church,
U.S. Theological liberalism was gaining ground, despite the best efforts of
conservatives to win the battle for the Bible. After years of seeking to
reclaim the denomination back to its historic stance of biblical faithfulness,
on January 8, 1978, the
church voted to throw its support to the Presbyterian Church in America.
Words to Live By: “The visible church is a society made up
of all such as . . . do profess the true religion, and of their
children.” (L.C. 62) This answer centers around the phrase “the
true religion.” Suppose a denomination with a great past of faithfulness to the
true religion slowly but surely turns away from the faith of their spiritual
fathers. Suppose that any and all attempts to turn it back fails.
There is only one remedy, and that is to leave it for a denomination which
still proclaims the whole counsel of God. And that is what this
congregation, and countless others, did back in 1973. Praise God for the
Presbyterian Church in America.
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