Critics don’t believe church isn’t for sale
Officials at First Baptist, one of Broward’s oldest places of worship, say there is no cause for alarm
The message is consistent: First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale is not for sale. Its valuable property, 7 acres on the northeast corner of Broward Boulevard and Northeast Third Avenue, is not for sale. There have been no discussions about selling the property. It is not the pastor’s endgame.
That’s what officials at what is one of Broward’s oldest churches have been assuring its congregation, its critics and anyone else who will listen for months. But the church is in the middle of a veritable civil war, and disaffected members have lost faith in the promises of its leaders.
Last weekend the church held its first official business meeting in more than a year, its members approving a $4 million budget that includes community outreach and backpacks for schoolkids, but is once again missing its one-time signature event
an annual Christmas Pageant that took months to plan and drew thousands of attendees every year.
For over a year now, First Baptist has been engaged in an open struggle over its future, with Head Pastor James Welch pushing for a new vision of outreach, one that imprints the congregation’s brand across Broward County instead of attracting people to the church for a spectacle they have to pay for in order to see.
“We want a movement of hope for our city and beyond,” said Steve Blount, the church’s executive pastor. “We want to do outreach all over the county. It’s not outreach if the public needs to pay to attend.”
The decision to permanently cancel the Christmas pageant came last July, igniting an already growing distrust between critical members and Welch, who was appointed to lead the congregation in February 2019 after a three-year search. Grumblings gave way to open rebellion. By the end of the year, a faction of members held what they considered a legally binding meeting firing Welch and dismissing a slew of trustees and deacons over allegations of financial mismanagement.
It didn’t work. “We had the votes. They had the keys,” said Brian Keno, one of the unofficial leaders of the “advocacy group” of critical members.
Welch stayed in power, and dozens of members (82, by the church’s count) have been purged from the church’s rolls. Efforts to get both sides to put a mediator in charge of resolving their dispute without resorting to the secular justice system have collapsed, with each side blaming the other for the failure.
A member-driven legal action seeking to force church leadership to the table is scheduled for a hearing late this month.
Last year the church ran a $1.76 million deficit, its largest in years, but that was absorbed by the church’s healthy financial reserves, according to the independent Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The auditing group concluded two months ago that the church’s finances were not being mishandled.
“So far this year, our revenue is ahead of our budget by $900,000,” Blount said.
Meanwhile, dozens of purged members turned up last weekend, hoping to get into the members-only business meeting and stung by the realization that they were welcome to attend the service, but they were no longer considered members of First Baptist.
“I got a notice saying I’m not in good standing and won’t be allowed in the meeting,” Keno said. He wasn’t alone. “I’ve been a member of the church for five years, since I was a freshman in high school,” said Jamie Nance, 20, a member of the faction that voted to oust Welch. Nance said she never received a notice purging her from membership. “I was heartbroken that I was not let in.”
On a social media page for critics of the church, Nance criticized Welch for his handling of dissenters. “We are not a mob,” she wrote. “We are people with hearts and feelings, and all we ever wanted was a voice.”
Keno said freezing members out of the business meeting was a way for church officials to pass their budget with less accountability to its critics.
Member John Contini, a former Broward Circuit Court judge who now practices private mediation services, disagreed. “We love the pageant no less than they do,” said Contini. “But its time has passed and we need to give way to a new direction. Many members, myself included, support that.”
Nance, Keno and other members point to Welch’s history as a pastor in New Orleans, which involved the sale of church property, and suspect he’s planning the same for South Florida.
“Ultimately what’s going to happen is, they’re going to sell the land,” said Nance.
Not true, said Blount and church attorney Jack Seiler. Both said there are no plans to sell any church properties.
“The property is our most valuable asset,” Blount said. “And it’s not for sale.”