Evicted Worshipers Vow Not to Leave

Armed with sleeping bags, about 30 members of an Inglewood church have moved into their church building, pledging to fight eviction after they lost their deed to the property.

As of 12:01 this morning, All People’s Lockhaven Christian Lighthouse Church legally became the property of a Christian lending institution in an unusual battle over religion and finances. Church members began locking themselves in Monday evening, vowing that sheriff’s deputies would have to drag them out.

The eviction has its seeds in a loan for $70,000 that the church took out in 1982, when dwindling membership put it in danger of closing. In borrowing the money from the Fullerton-based Church Development Fund, the church agreed to sign over the deed to the three-acre property, valued at $2 million, and to remain a Christian church.

Six months later, the lender canceled the agreement and took the first steps to acquire the church property, claiming that Lockhaven fell outside the Development Fund’s definition of Christian practices because it had adopted the practice of speaking in tongues.

“When the Development Fund made the loan they wanted the assurance that the organization would remain a Church of Christ,” said Steve Cameron, the Development Fund’s lawyer. “They [Lockhaven] have several doctrinal differences that exist that are not recognized by the Church of Christ.”

Members of the interdenominational church contend that, although they do speak in tongues, their beliefs are allied with the Christian church. In some denominations, particularly Pentecostals, speaking in tongues is accepted as normal and a “gift of the Holy Spirit.”

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Church members contend that they are being ousted unfairly because the members of the congregation who signed over the property, none of whom are members of the church today, signed the agreement only because they were desperately trying to save the fellowship.

Now, today’s members are resorting to desperate measures.

Marc and Donna Wright packed up their two children, ages 9 and 13, and camp-out necessities and drove from San Pedro on Monday evening to make a stand on the issue, in case sheriff’s deputies arrived earlier than expected to evict church members. Marc Wright, who works for the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, brought files to read and said he was prepared to skip work if he had to.

“A great injustice has happened to this church,” he said. “This kind of thing happens all the time but it just gets swept under the rug and in back rooms. I needed to be here to make a stand and plan to stay for the duration.”

The church, which has grown to 300 members, paid off its loan on time. But the deed still belongs to the lender because it was placed into an irrevocable trust that gave the funding group sole discretion to terminate the agreement at any time.

“We kept our end of the bargain. We are a Christian church and we’ve paid off our loan,” said Pastor Anthony Sanders. “How is it that this organization has ended up with the money and the property?”

Cameron, the attorney for the Development Fund, said the Lockhaven church elders wanted the lending organization to take leadership of the church in 1982 because it was in such disarray and had shrunk from nearly 500 members a few years earlier to about 20. The church was in a period of immense change, both sides agree, and within a few months had adopted the practice of speaking in tongues, in which members speak in other languages or in no identifiable language when the spirit moves them.

The Development Fund plans to move another congregation that needs a building into Lockhaven, Cameron said. As for the pledge by Lockhaven members to lock themselves in, Cameron said the lending organization will wait for the Sheriff’s Department to do its job if that proves necessary.

Lockhaven filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in 1992 in an attempt to keep the property, but the judge found in favor of the lending organization. An appeal filed this year led to the same ruling in April.

According to Tony Howell, a former church elder who signed the trust agreement, congregation members fought over whether to sign away the deed, but eventually concluded that it was the only way to keep the church going.

“We were going through so much change at the church,” Howell said. “None of the banks would lend us any money because we were so small. We had no choice but to sign it over.”

At the request of church members, county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke asked the county Consumer Affairs Department to review the matter and provide a mediator so that the two parties could resolve the conflict amicably, but the Church Development Fund declined.

Cameron said the organization has tried working out agreements in the past without success. He said the organization offered to sell the church back to Lockhaven for $1.5 million in 1992, but the church declined the offer. Sanders said church members did not believe they should have to pay for a property that was theirs to begin with.

In addition to holding its own services at Lockhaven, the congregation has rented out its auditorium to a Latino fellowship, Seguidores de Cristo (Followers of Christ), for 12 years. Both congregations have no place to go, but are banking on their faith to point them in the right direction.

“Our faith is in God,” said Fidel Parra of Seguidores de Cristo. “They may take away our building, but the churches will both stand.”