Keep the Building, Keep the $4 Million Mortgage: How a Fast-Growing Church Left Its Denomination With Its Property

• Wesley Church in Quarryville grew from about 35 to more than 600 in worship
• It paid $100,000 for its buildings and land plus $58,000 in other obligations
• The church kept its property and its nearly $4 million mortgage
• The bishop said the conference did not want to take on the debt

A fast-growing Pennsylvania congregation has left the United Methodist Church and kept its buildings, UM News reported in July 2015.

Wesley United Methodist Church in Quarryville, now Wesley Church, grew from about 35 to more than 600 people in worship. Under an agreement with the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, it paid $100,000 for its church buildings and land and a further $58,000 in other conference obligations, a total of $158,000. The church kept the property along with its mortgage of nearly $4 million.

Bishop Peggy Johnson explained the conference’s reasoning: “It seemed to me a terrible thing to assume that debt as an annual conference.” The Rev James McIntire put it more bluntly: “We don’t need a building with a $4 million mortgage.”

The Rev Blake Deibler said the debt was part of why the conference was accommodating: “That’s one of the reasons they were very gracious with us.” Retired Bishop William B. Oden raised a wider concern: “The question is: Is this just the first tear in the fabric?”

In United Methodist polity, local church property is held in trust for the denomination, so a church cannot normally leave with its buildings. Here, a large mortgage changed the calculation: taking the building would have meant taking the debt.

For Jamaican congregations, the case is a reminder that a church building’s value must be weighed against what is owed on it, and that who holds title, and on what trust terms, decides what happens when a congregation’s relationship with its denomination changes. Churches should know their trust deeds and loan obligations before any split or merger.

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