By John Ceballos, The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.).
Screen grab of the Westminster Presbyterian Church web site.
Cory Petcoff believes there was some divine intervention in the deal that will bring a new church to the space previously occupied by a different congregation.
Petcoff is the president of Lakeland-based Baron Realty, which closed a deal last week to acquire the property that formerly housed Westminster Presbyterian Church.
“I really, really believe the hand of God was on this transaction,” Petcoff said. “There were a lot of times these deals could’ve died, but they kept getting put back together, and we were able to work our way through all the challenges.”
Baron Realty will lease the 7,000-square-foot Gothic-style sanctuary building, which housed Westminster Presbyterian since the 1920s, to the non-denominational Grace City Church.
Additionally, the 7,300-square-foot space formerly occupied by Westminster Presbyterian’s parish hall and Sunday school rooms has been leased by the new Lakeland Institute for Learning.
“It’s an iconic church in the area,” said Craig Morby, the broker who handled the transaction. “It’s got 1925 issues, but you also don’t want it to go away.
“The good news is the space will continue to be a church.”
Web site for Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lakeland, Fla.
10 Comments. Leave new
This is good news. We have several Episcopal parishes here that have shut down because of loss of attenders. But I have seen a couple being leased out. The first was to a non-denominational Bible church. The second parish just had a big banner out in front announcing it was becoming a Korean Methodist church.
So I think God is bringing redemption out of the ashes in some of these situations. Two or three others just still sit there empty although they are still being maintained. One has a perfectly fine pre-school and elementary school attached to it which is also empty–the families that would have populated that school left the church long ago. We need to pray that these spaces be opened up to Christians.
At least it’s not being turned into a hindu temple or a mosque.
God works in wonderful ways. Trust in Him.
I’m curious now. Who gets the purchase price? The former congregation, or the presbytery?
The proceeds will go to the congregation formed by the union of Westminster with the Church in the Meadows. The only time a presbytery receives the proceeds is when it dissolves a congregation, or if a congregation seeking to separate from the PCUSA either voluntarily surrenders its property or is forced by the courts (in hierarchical deference states) to either surrender the property or buy it a second time from the presbytery.
A comparison of Westminster Presbyterian and Grace City’s websites is highly instructive. Westminster’s is all about “inclusion” and “diversity”. Grace City’s is all about making disciples of Jesus Christ. It is no wonder which group is closing and which one is growing.
But The Church in the Meadows is not PCUSA. It’s Baptist. The union of Westminster and The Church in the Meadows is no doubt Baptist. Doesn’t that change who gets the purchase price? Is the PCUSA letting that money slip away?
I haven’t checked anything except the website for The Church in the Meadows, but I presume this congregation has been dissolved as a PCUSA church, for it to merge with a Baptist Church, which makes for a more interesting story for The Layman. Is this the future for many more of the smaller PCUSA churches?
My mistake. The article had mentioned nothing about the denomination to which the Church in the Meadows belonged, so I assumed that it was another PC(USA) congregation.
The Church in the Meadows’ website describes itself as a “moderate” congregation and states that it is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a denomination of some 1800 congregations that separated from the Southern Baptist Convention 25 years ago. It is worth noting that the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, where former President Carter attends, is also affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Now, there are four other PC(USA) congregations in Lakeland (two of them within two miles of Westminster; for reference, the Church in the Meadows is 5-1/2 miles away), and Westminster is not merging with any of them. However, this merger appears to have the blessing of all the Lakeland PC(USA) churches, inasmuch as the five of them plus the Church in the Meadows celebrated a joint service this past Thanksgiving. I suspect that Westminster and Tampa Bay Presbytery have worked out an agreement whereby the proceeds from the sale of the Westminster property will be divided between the presbytery and the Church in the Meadows.
That could be. It would be an interesting follow-up story for The Layman. Did the congregation sell the church, or did the presbytery take it back and sell it? Was this a case where the remaining congregation just couldn’t support the physical plant, or did the congregation primarily want to leave the denomination, and essentially abandoned the property? What motivated them to leave? Is this how a smaller congregation leaves the denomination, without jumping through the hoops of gracious dismissal? It might make for a good story.