Greetings,
    On Friday, September 15, the Layman Online published an article entitled “PCUSA dispatches teams to advise synod officials on property issues.”  The article talks about lawyers and others from the PC(USA) denominational headquarters sending teams out to talk to synod officials about property disputes.

There seems to be no question from the “Louisville Papers,” as the Layman calls, them that the national headquarters is concerned about property issues. And from recent events and continuing disputes it seems certain that property cases will be contested for a while.  Also, several of the older cases, that is pre-TTF report, are in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii.  It is in that setting that the article talks about a case in the Presbytery of San Gabriel over a year before the 217th GA adopted the PUP report.

I wanted to add a bit of context to that part of the Layman article since it makes up a significant portion of that whole piece.  The article mentions an Administrative Commission active in the winter and spring of 2005.  It is important to know that while this commission was dealing with property, the property was in no way contested.  The Presbytery of San Gabriel formed the commission to dissolve a church at the church’s request.  With the dissolution the property was transferred to another PC(USA) congregation that was sharing the space with the dissolving congregation.  There was no dispute and no property ownership contested by any entity here, be it one of the churches or a middle governing body.

Yes, as part of that process the administrative commission made a series of recommendations to the presbytery that were suggested in the spirit of making similar events easier in the future.  And, the commission did consult with property specialist to be sure that the transfer was done properly, legally, decently and in order.  As far as I can discover talking with people involved in the process the recommendations were made and accepted in good faith and in the context of working with struggling churches. For those on the presbytery level who I know these events predate the release of the TTF report by almost a year and no connection to the present disputes is seen.