So, Who Owns the Sanctuary?
[Excerpted from an article by Kathleen K. Rutledge, Christianity Today, September 2004]

NOTE: I thought this article was of interest to United Methodists in regards to property rights as we look at a possible amicable separation from other UMC interests.

"When Vaughn Tuttle and 70 other members of Gove UMC voted to leave the denomination in May 2003, they did not anticipate the fallout, especially when it came to church property. 'The church as a whole has just gotten liberal on a lot of conservative issues,' Tuttle says, 'like homosexuals in the pulpit.' But homosexuality wasn't the primary concern. He was alarmed when Tibetan chants and Baha'i prayer bells were used in worship. 'Sometimes you gotta just set your foot down and say, 'This isn't right.''

At the United Methodist Church in Gove, there was not $10 million in real estate at stake, but generations of interfamily relationships in jeopardy.

'This is a county of less than 3,000 persons and most of these people are related to one another by blood or marriage or long-standing friendships,' Pat Ault-Duell, administrative head of the Kansas West Conference, said in a written statement. The schism caused 'very deep hurts and a large sense of betrayal.'

On May 25, two weeks after the majority faction elected to leave the denomination, furthering severing occurred when denominational leaders showed up unannounced to conduct Sunday worship. Though the group of 70 had voted to leave the national church, it continued to use the church facility for worship.

'The members of the splinter group were free to leave the denomination,' Ault-Duell said, 'but they were not free to take property built for and used by the United Methodist Church."

The Methodist Book of Discipline states that all properties accumulated in the name of the UMC are to be held in trust for use by the denomination.

An argument ensued -- and Ault-Duell called the remaining members to the parking lot for an ad hoc worship service.

On that day families were divided, Vaughn Tuttle recalls. Children elected to leave the UMC, while parents and grandparents stayed with the denomination. 'My son's girlfriend, her family left,' Tuttle says, 'Her grandmother came over and said, 'Hey, are you going with us?' and she said, 'No.'"

Six weeks later, the Kansas West Conference froze the assets of the local church, saying the Gove church was subject to the denomination's trust clause.

Paul Woodall, presiding pastor of Gove UMC when the body elected to split, says he did not think the trust clause applied to the church because the phrase was not in the deed. Likewise, Woodall says, the congregation believed the trust relationship described in the Book of Discipline referred to a mutual obligation to uphold both church doctrine and church law.

Bishop Fritz Mutti, who supervises the South Central Jurisdiction, which incorporates eight states including Kansas, denies charges of doctrinal unfaithfulness. Pastors and denominational leaders are expected to agree to Methodist doctrinal standards when they are ordained, he says, conceding that 'it doesn't mean everybody talks about theology in the same way.'

In regards to property disputes, however, Mutti said the church law is clear. 'The property is held in trust for the trustees of the United Methodist Church.'

After several months of legal exchanges, the two sides agreed to mediate the assets of Gove UMC last December. In the settlement, which was finalized in February, the conference received full title to the property, and the Gove splinter gropu agreed to turn over the church's assets -- $50,000 in cash and certificates of deposit, and architectural drawings. All the cash, under the agreement, will be donated to a Methodist youth camp in a neighboring town.'