South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Church battle has just begun
First Baptist of Fort Lauderdale’s cancellation of popular Christmas pageant has led to turmoil among membership
One of Broward County’s oldest churches — the sponsor of a beloved Chrismas pageant for nearly four decades — is struggling to prevent a civil war.
At the center of the conflict at First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale is the decision this year to cancel the church’s popular annual Christmas attraction.
The Broadway-style spectacle, known as the Fort Lauderdale Christmas Pageant, flourished as a major fundraiser. The celebration thrived for 36 years — a bright spot in the history of a church that was founded in 1907, four years before the city itself was incorporated. Thousands of people, eager for holiday cheer, flocked to the church at the northeast corner of Broward Boulevard and Northeast Third Avenue.
Now, some parishioners upset about the church’s decision-making have been openly trying to overthrow the head pastor and trustees, referring to themselves as the First Baptist Church Advocacy Group. They know this year’s pageant can’t be saved, but they want the option of bringing it back in the years to come.
Church leaders say that the turmoil is unnecessary and that the rebelling members need to come to terms with the church’s new direction.
Emotions are raw; both sides cite scripture in their defense; police have gotten involved; and church members have been suspended.
Pastor James Welch, who was appointed to lead the congregation in February 2019 after a three-year search, told parishioners in January 2020 that the show would be discontinued permanently. The COVID pandemic was not a factor — no one at the time was predicting the lockdowns that would begin two months later and would
probably have canceled this year’s pageant anyway.
“For three to four months every year, the pageant became the primary emphasis that exacted a toll on the larger calling of the church to offer and experience a broader array of ministry opportunities all year long,” church leaders wrote to the South Florida Sun Sentinel in response to a request for comment.
A South Florida tradition
The pageant normally ran for between 14 and 19 performances in early to mid-December, telling the Christmas story through eye-popping performances blending traditional costumes and storytelling (often complete with live camels) with more modern Christian worship music, carols and other performances. Hundreds of volunteers labored for months to bring the pageant to life.
But the church said the pageant’s attendance had declined over the past decade while still requiring a large number of volunteers to support it. Church leadership decided the event became a major drain on church resources.
“After much deliberation and prayer, church leadership believed it was time to end the pageant and instead focus on being a church with year-round Bible study and active small groups, community outreach, local and global missions, and bold preaching,” the church said in a statement.
Welch was not available for an interview. Romney Rogers, a church trustee and attorney who also is a former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner, provided the church’s statement Friday.
‘Not a little squabble’
But disaffected members won’t stand for the church’s direction. They created a website and now view themselves as the church’s advocacy group. They hired a parliamentarian to navigate through the church’s bylaws and register their complaints in a formal, legal fashion. They say they’ve gathered the signatures of more than 200 members to call a special meeting to start the process of removing Welch and the nine-member board of trustees that supports him.
They say it’s not just about the pageant, but also about worries there could be more unpopular changes to come. Among Advocacy Group members’ concerns is whether the church would sell off any of its valuable downtown property, but Rogers said there were no such plans.
Deanna Weilhouwer, who oversaw ticket sales for the pageant for 24 years, disputed the church’s account of dwindling interest in the event, calling it “an absolute fabrication.” Over the last few years, the pageant was responsible for roughly a third of the church’s annual revenue, she estimated.
Her husband, Dan, chairman of the Advocacy Group, said its members’ concerns about the church’s direction and fiscal responsibility have been ignored. “This is not a little squabble,” he said.
Advocacy Group member Brian Keno, a prominent local jeweler, was escorted out of the church a week ago when he stood up after the end of a Sunday morning service to announce the meeting to remove church leaders.
“People are quitting the church,” Keno said in an interview Thursday. “Membership is dwindling. It’s our belief membership is dwindling for a reason.”
But it’s unclear how much the church’s conflict has affected membership. The pandemic has made shrinking attendance a reality for churches across the country, and members who leave any church don’t always formally withdraw. There’s no reliable way to tell whether parishioners have stopped attending because of COVID or because they have joined other churches.
Getting police to step in
The intensity of the conflict reached a peak at one of the recent services.
Keno said he deliberately waited until the early Nov. 8 service was over to make his announcement. “I didn’t disrupt anything,” he said. But the church saw it differently.
Fort Lauderdale Police Officer Laurenia Fahie, who was working an off-duty shift at the church, filed an official report saying the dissenters had promised before the service that they would only distribute information about the meeting, not make a public announcement.
Tensions escalated between services.
Keno’s wife, Collette, attended the 11 a.m. service with several teenagers sitting across from her. Concerned that the teenagers might disrupt the service, church security asked the Kenos’ 15-yearold daughter to leave. Collette Keno objected, sparking a confrontation in the sanctuary.
“I gestured to [Keno] to keep it down and come with us to the vestibule where we could talk,” Fahie wrote. Once in the church lobby, Keno tried to get past Fahie and back into the sanctuary, according to Fahie’s report. A video of the incident shows Fahie walking Keno out the door.
Rogers, the trustee and attorney, tried to intervene in the dispute but ended up trying to stop Brian Keno from recording video with his phone, according to Fahie’s report and Keno’s video.
The Kenos ultimately left the church building.