Hollywood pastors return to church after midnight runs
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, June 27, 2005
Successfully following a Book of Order procedure and making some midnight runs in Los Angeles, Hollywood Presbyterian Church brought its two exiled ministers back to the church on Sunday.
After weeks of declining attendance and giving at First Presbyterian since an administrative commission took over control of the church and ordered its pastors to go on indefinite administrative leave, the ministers were welcomed back with standing ovations that lasted several minutes.
The Rev. Dr. Alan J. Meenan, the senior minister, and the Rev. Dr. David Manock, his top associate, spoke briefly at all four worship services, but they did not preempt Dr. Os Guinness, an internationally noted evangelical scholar who had previously been scheduled to preach.
Many who attended the worship services were surprised to see Meenan and Manock because they did not know that their supporters had succeeded in securing an 11th-hour petition that would have failed if it had been a day later.
Both ministers told the worshipers at four services that they were resuming their responsibilities and that they were committed to reconciliation in the 2,760-member evangelical congregation.
Two elders told The Layman Online that attendance at worship services had dropped by about 30 percent and that giving had also declined sharply since the Presbytery of the Pacific voted on May 3 to name an administrative commission to govern the church.
After that presbytery meeting adjourned, around midnight, the commission members gave Meenan and Manock a letter ordering them to clear out their offices by noon on May 4, vacate the premises and go on indefinite administrative leave.
At a subsequent presbytery meeting, on May 10, commissioners rejected a motion to overturn the administrative commission’s order by reinstating Meenan and Manock.
However, many of the ministers’ supporters decided to try to get them reinstated though a process outlined in Chapter 6, the Rules of Discipline in the Book of Order.
That chapter explains how a governing body’s decision might be suspended. One of those requirements is to gain the signatures of at least one-third of the voting members who attended the presbytery that imposed the indefinite leave for Meenan and Manock. (That was the May 10 regular meeting of the presbytery. The May 3 called meeting did not specifically deal with the administrative leave. In fact, commissioners affirmed the ministries of Meenan and Manock at the May 3 meeting.)
The supporters of Meenan and Manock worked feverishly to secure the stay of enforcement by fulfilling the requirements of D-6.0103, which says:
The action or decision of a governing body, of its permanent judicial commission, or of a respondent named in D-6.0202b may be suspended by a stay of enforcement. A stay of enforcement is a written statement that requests the implementation of a decision or action be delayed until a complaint or appeal is finally determined.
a. Any person or governing body qualified to file a complaint or appeal may stay enforcement by filing with the governing body, commission, or respondent whose action or decision is to be stayed, no later than forty-five days after the decision or action, one of the following:
1. a stay of enforcement signed by at least one third of the members recorded as present when the decision or action was made by the governing body; …
The petition for the stay included 51 signatures, a few more than were required. It was presented to the presbytery’s stated clerk, Frank Marshall on Friday, June 24, the 45th day since the presbytery’s vote on May 10 to sustain the administrative commission’s order that the ministers go on administrative leave.
Church members who worked on the petition campaign said it was touch-and-go as to whether they would secure enough signatures and get them to the presbytery office in time. They said they received the commissioners’ attendance list only about 10 days before the deadline.
Using e-mail and telephone, they contacted ministers and elders who attended the May 10 presbytery meeting and asked them to sign the stay-of-enforcement petition. Several commissioners told the Hollywood canvassers that they agreed with their effort but would not sign the document because of possible repercussions from the presbytery.
The final step in the process was when five drivers crisscrossed Los Angeles, one of the world’s toughest cities to negotiate by car, to collect the signatures, some signing up in diners after midnight.
The presbytery has 45 days to appeal the stay to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii. The synod court already has two remedial cases on the Hollywood situation – filed by the Hollywood session and by the two pastors. The complaints allege, among other things, that Meenan and Manock were denied due process and fundamental fairness and that the presbytery seized control of the church without following the PCUSA’s constitutional requirements.