Council Corner
First of all, I apologize for not being present in church on October 5th when it was announced to the congregation that our lawsuit had finally been filed. LuAnne and I had previously made plans to visit our daughter in Tennessee. I also want to thank Alan Hayes for being the one who passed the initial information on to the congregation.
At any rate, our lawsuit was filed in late September, and it alleged that the church council acted beyond our authority when we filed our paperwork with the state and then withdrew from the UMC. The plaintiff on the lawsuit is indicated as the con-ference and “present and former members” of the church. The only way that
we knew about the lawsuit was by periodically monitoring the Aiken County court cases. As soon as I found out about the case, we forwarded the information to the NCLL lawyers. Since that time, our lawyers have filed paperwork in the Aiken courts to indicate that they were representing our church and its leadership and
another document requesting the case be dismissed. The bases for dismissal were (1) third parties cannot challenge the decisions made by the board of directors (our church council) of a nonprofit organization, (2) per the United States and South Carolina constitutions courts have no jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, and (3) the conference has no valid interest in our church property. The lawyers also filed a lengthy document in support of the motion to dismiss that I am still reading and will share comments about next month.
I also spoke with our NCLL lawyer, Jonathan Bailie, on October 21st to see if anything current could be shared. He indicated that the process is slowly moving forward and that was in our favor. He believes that the longer we are separated and handling all matters on our own that the court will be less likely to rule against us. He indicated that each local court system has to forward the cases forward so that the honorable Brian Gibbons can hear and rule on all cases. He encouraged us to continue with our normal services and duties and indicated that we should conduct business as usual including moving forward with the hiring of a minister. Therefore, the PPRC will add more priority to the search for a pastor which has been on-going since we started the separation process.
Please continue to pray for our church, its leadership, and our lawyers as we navigate through this process Also pray for the court system and the judge that will hear the cases and render the decisions for all of the 60+ churches involved in this process.
As always if you have any questions or comments about this information, please speak with me at church or give me a call.
Peyton Northington
803-645-6396
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