Two Orlando area congregations have been granted dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA).
During the June 3 meeting of Central Florida Presbytery, Woodbury Presbyterian Church and St. Stephen Presbyterian Church both were dismissed to align with ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
According to the presbytery’s Process for Pastoral Responsibility, Accountability and Gracious Witness to Congregations at Times of Division, Dismissal or Dissolution (gracious witness process), there is a 90-day period for any appeals to the dismissals, meaning the effective date of dismissal will be Sept. 2.
Woodbury and St. Stephen join two other congregations that have been dismissed in the last two years by the presbytery. First Presbyterian Church of Orlando and Trinity Presbyterian Church were dismissed in June 2012, and Community Presbyterian Church disaffiliated at the same time when the presbytery refused its request for dismissal.
Woodbury Presbyterian Church
According to the settlement agreement, the 144-member congregation will pay $125,899 to the presbytery to depart and retain its property. The payment will be $110,551 for real and personal property, and $15,348 for per capita over a period of three years.
An initial payment of $30,000, made within 20 days of the presbytery’s dismissal vote, will be followed by nine annual payments of principal in the amount of $10,655.44 each plus interest of 4 percent.
There also is a five-year reversion clause that allows Central Florida Presbytery to retain the property if Woodbury dissolves its corporate existence, fails to remain part of a Reformed body or becomes independent.
Woodbury’s session began the dismissal process with the presbytery in February 2013, and a Resolution Team began its work with the church in April 2013.
The vote to seek dismissal from the PCUSA in October 2013 was 72-13 in favor of departure.
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
The settlement agreement for the 99-member St. Stephen congregation required a payment of $95,017 to leave the PCUSA and keep its property. A negotiated sum of $71,500 was required for property with a one-year per-capita payment of $3,517. The Wells bequest, in the amount of $20,000, also will be transferred from the church to the presbytery.
The first payment, in the amount of $32,017, was made within 20 days of the dismissal vote by the presbytery, followed by 10 annual payments in the amount of $6,300 each along with 4 percent interest.
The agreement also includes a five-year reversion clause that allows Central Florida Presbytery to retain the property if St. Stephen dissolves its corporate existence, fails to remain part of a Reformed body or becomes independent.
St. Stephen initiated the dismissal process early in 2013, and the presbytery formed a Resolution Tem to work with the church in March 2013.
A congregational vote to be dismissed from the PCUSA was taken on Oct. 27, 2013, and yielded a 74-3 margin for leaving the national denomination.
4 Comments. Leave new
Woodbury Church has to pay the presbytery $125,899.
St. Stephen has to pay $95,017.
The greedy Central Florida Presbytery is acting like a Christian extortion organization.
There has been a huge disparity in the settlements paid by churches leaving the PC(USA) with their property. The reason is that trust law jurisprudence in half the states refuses to recognize the validity of the PC(USA) trust clause and if presbyteries are foolish enough to take a congregation to court in those states, the presbytery will lose. Churches lucky enough to be located in those states can leave with only a token payment to the presbytery because the presbytery has no leverage. Presbyteries in the other half of states where courts uphold the trust clause can extract larger payments by churches, hence the $8.89 million Menlo Park had to pay the San Francisco presbytery. The only silver lining in all of this for congregations is that the behavior of presbyteries during this era marks the death knell of this kind of “connectionalism.” Never again will Christians build buildings which end up owned by some denomination so the trust clause is headed for a blessed extinction.
Does anyone know where all this money is going? It sure not to mission work, the PCA has more missionaries on accident than we do on purpose. It sure not to starting new churches, whose holding these thieving presbyteries accountable?
How do we find out. Someone’s making out like a bandit, perhaps shoring up retirement accounts, perhaps investing in time shares’, because it’s not going to expanding the Gospel.
Had your writer checked with Central Florida Presbytery, we would have helped the article be more accurate than what can be gleaned from the dismissal agreements approved on June 3. One would have expected that basic journalistic practice would have led to such a contact with the presbytery, but …
St. Stephen elected to pay the negotiated settlement in full rather than in ten annual installments. With no synod appeal to the action of the presbytery, that dismissal became effective on September 12, when the parties signed the final dismissal documents. CFP is scheduled to sign the final documents with Woodbury on September 23.
Community Presbyterian Church (I assume Howey in the Hills; we have two, the other being in Celebration) did not disaffiliate. The former pastor renounced the jurisdiction of the PC(USA) in June 2012, the day after CFP declined to dismiss the congregation at that meeting, for a number of reasons. The primary one was because there was an outstanding Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program mortgage that had not been satisfied. Such loans must be paid off or refinanced outside of the PILP system before a presbytery can dismiss a congregation. A number of members left with the pastor and formed a new congregation, but the congregation remains a part of CFP. As for the PILP loan, the presbytery worked with the session to pay off the loan earlier this month, with the presbytery contributing almost $200,000 to do so. For one of your readers’ information, this is an example of what we greedy presbyteries do with the money entrusted to us.
Your readers would do well to reflect on why presbyteries negotiate financial settlements with congregations seeking dismissal. Take Woodbury as an example, a congregation CFP planted in 1988. In planting this congregation, CFP invested significant funds in start-up costs, including the purchase of the initial land for the location, the cost of the new church development pastor until the congregation could take that over, support towards the initial building, etc. The total support, mostly from the presbytery but also from synod and General Assembly, topped $600,000, mostly in late 1980’s/early 1990’s dollars. Woodbury has always been a very generous congregation, in the upper level of giving per member within CFP, and contributed back to the presbytery over $350,000 in per capita and basic mission support over the past 25+ years..
But this gap is not the reason for the negotiated settlements, and it isn’t because of the common mistake made by many that the presbytery owns the property. G-4.0203 clearly states that property held by a congregation — that is, owned — is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the PC(USA). It is the way things have been since at least 1873. When a congregation wishes to leave the denomination, the presbytery alone is empowered to determine, on behalf of the entire PC(USA) — past, present, and future — what the best use of the property is, and who should benefit from it. If CFP dismisses a congregation with the property and if there is no continuing congregation, the financial settlement is meant to compensate the presbytery for giving up these rights into the future, If there is a continuing congregation, the funds go completely to support its continued existence.
As for the money we have negotiated in these two recent settlements, the primary use will be to help fund redevelopment efforts with some of our smaller congregations. Only the funds specifically designated as average per capita and mission support for one or three years will go into the presbytery’s general fund.
Dan Williams
Executive Presbyter/Stated Clerk
Central Florida Presbytery