Trustees of the Southern Baptists’ only seminary...

Trustees of the Southern Baptists’ only seminary west of the Rockies have voted to study the possibility of selling their valuable bay-side Marin County campus and relocating.

“We have no place in mind” for relocation, said William O. Crews Jr., the former Riverside pastor who is president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley.

The first step, Crews said in an interview, was to “ask if we are being the best manager” of the 148-acre site in light of the potential value of the property, the housing costs for faculty and whether the seminary will have the capacity to train enough pastors for the growing number of Southern Baptist churches in western states.

“At maximum, we could probably have no more than 1,000 students on campus,” Crews said. “We have 600 now and mission projections would call for three times that many to be educated here.”

The trustees voted unanimously to explore “options for the best use of the Mill Valley property” during a regular meeting this month at the Southern California branch of the seminary in Brea.

Crews said about 100 students now study at the Brea facility on land donated by the neighboring Brea Center Baptist Church. “We just dedicated a building that will take care of 200 to 300 students,” he said.

Golden Gate seminary also has a branch campus in Portland, Ore.

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Father Lawrence Estrada, the personal aide to Archbishop Roger M. Mahony since the prelate took over the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese in 1985, will end his duties Aug. 1. Estrada will be replaced by Father Kevin Kostelnik, whose position as associate pastor at St. Andrew’s Church in Pasadena will be assumed by Estrada.

The latter hopes to continue celebrating occasional clubhouse Masses for Catholics on the Los Angeles Dodgers. But Estrada indicated he won’t miss the frequent helicopter trips with Mahony once the archbishop ends his current training.

DATES

United Methodists hope that 6,300 ticket-holding church members and clergy will show up and virtually fill the Shrine Auditorium Sunday afternoon for a large musical celebration, an event unprecedented for that mainline denomination in Southern California. “Proud to Be a United Methodist” is the announced theme for a talk by Bishop Jack M. Tuell.

A daylong briefing on issues before the state Legislature, organized by the Rev. Glen Holman, longtime Sacramento lobbyist for ecumenical church councils, will be held Friday at Culver City United Methodist Church. It will feature talks by several members of the state Senate and Assembly.

Author-priest Malcolm Boyd, saying he believes the sermon is “an art form neglected by our culture,” will combine with performance artist Tim Miller for a “sermon-with-performance” during the 10:30 a.m. service Sunday at Santa Monica’s St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church.