A negotiating team with representatives for both the church and presbytery worked out the purchase provisions. The presbytery voted September 19 to accept the purchase. The church postponed a vote three times before taking action Oct. 19.
Church members voted 508 to 483 to pay for the 100,000-square-foot church building, located on nearly 10 acres of prime real estate, instead of continuing legal battles to try and prove Kirk of the Hills already owns it. The 2,600-member congregation may now remain in place and continue its ministries in the location it has occupied since the 1970s.
The vote ends a two-year legal struggle that began in August 2006 when the congregation voted almost unanimously to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over concerns that the denomination was drifting from its biblical foundation.
Following the separation vote, the congregation immediately sued the presbytery and the PC(USA) in an Oklahoma district court seeking outright ownership of the property. The court challenge maintained that Kirk of the Hill’s members had paid for the property, held title to it, and were thus entitled to keep it. However, the court ruled in September that the PC(USA)’s Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery was the legal owner. (See the OUTLOOK article, “Oklahoma Court upholds Presbytery,” in the September 29 issue of the magazine.)
Kirk co-pastor the Rev. Tom Gray, who did not have a vote at the congregational meeting, told the Tulsa World that he was satisfied with the vote, although he would have voted to continue with the lawsuit rather than paying for the property. “This is a wonderful chance for us to move on,” he said.
Gray said there was not enough time to raise the $1.75 million before the Nov. 15 deadline for paying it to the presbytery, so the church will borrow the money from a bank and repay it over time.
Greg Coulter, general presbyter for Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, said before the vote that he hoped the church would accept the presbytery’s offer. He said the closeness of the vote clearly indicates a divided congregation.
“Obviously the Kirk is in our prayers,” he told the Tulsa World. “We hope this is a time for healing and moving forward as brothers and sisters in Christ.”
The funds the presbytery will receive from the property transaction have not been immediately allocated, according to Coulter. Their first priority will be to pay the legal fees of the presbytery and of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and they do not now know the amounts of those fees, he told the OUTLOOK. In general, he added, the presbytery’s next priority for such funds would be congregational development. The next presbytery meeting at which the approved sale will be discussed is December 2.
