Posted on 04/26/2007 10:20:15 PM PDT by PAR35
The fight by Montreat Presbyterian Church to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) is over, with the Presbytery of Western North Carolina voting to dismiss the congregation so that it may join the smaller, more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The fight for ownership of the church's property continues, with the presbytery voting to take possession while a task force studies the issue – and the departing congregation insisting that it owns the property outright under state law.
And just to muddy the waters further, the dismissal vote created a "continuing" Montreat Presbyterian Church that will keep the church name and is designated "the true church within the PCUSA."
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Until then, the Henry Building is to be shared by the "EPC Congregation," which gets 90 percent of the space, and the "continuing Montreat Presbyterian Church," which gets 10 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at layman.org ...
Had to condense headline to fit:
Montreat Presbyterian Church Presbytery dismisses congregation to EPC and creates 'continuing' PCUSA church; property issue unresolved
Good for them.
What did dismissing the congregation solve? They still claim the property and even the name! What would NOT dismissing the congregation mean? They’d keep the first-born children? They’d lock the congregants in a dungeon?
It postpones litigation. For the congregation, they get use of 90% of the disputed property for 6 months while trying to work out a settlement. Litigation is expensive, particularly for small churches. (About 450 members, about $700,000 in giving).
The bigger advantage is for the Presbytery, which will use the time to try to create a new congregation to try to take over the property. It will be an uphill battle. While they can probably scrape together a few people, their new church will not be self supporting. It depends on how much money they want to throw into trying to salvage a symbolic victory, versus how much they can get from the church to go away.
My guess is that they would probably settle for about 10% of the value of the real estate, and that it would be cost - effective for the congregation to accept a settlement along those lines. Given the symbolic value of Montreat, however, scorched earth litigation by the denomination can't be ruled out.
It could be a great strategy. The church wants to leave, however there is a small body in the church that is questioning, so they divide and the small body stays with the denomination but permits the larger body to use the facilities at the regular time and on a regular basis. What can the denomination do?
What could be done? Strong arm the presbytery to appoint an administrative commission to take over management of the small ‘loyal’ church and throw out the conservatives.
The liberals would rather have a closed church than a faithful church not under their control.
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