“At this time, the exact amount of money has not been made public, but sources say that is approximately $2.7 million, and could be in the form of grants, so that the presbytery will not have to vote again on the settlements with the churches. Sources say that two other churches still have a complaint lodged against them, because the churches refused to negotiate with Kindred Spirits.”

Now that complaints with church courts have been dismissed and judicial stays have been lifted, seven churches are now members of ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. All it took was for the churches to cough up more than $2-million above what they had already agreed to pay the presbytery.

The churches had all been dismissed from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos and were looking forward to their futures in ECO.

But a group of presbytery members – known as the Kindred Spirits – filed remedial complaints against each church, despite the fact that each one of them met the presbytery’s requirements for dismissal.

According to an earlier Layman Online article, the Kindred Spirits is made up of a small percentage of the presbytery and is vocal about its opposition to the joint solutions that have been approved to grant dismissal to the churches. The churches and their agreed upon financial settlement with the presbytery included:

1. St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, $1.7 million plus interest over a maximum of nine years.
2. Trinity United Presbyterian Church, Santa Ana, $982,250 over five years with an interest rate of 5 percent annually on the unpaid balance
3. First Presbyterian Church of Westminster, $98,786 in a lump sum within 90 days of acceptance of the terms of dismissal
4. Christ Presbyterian Church, Lakewood, $101,070, taking into consideration property value ($77,000), continued tiered mission giving over two and a half years ($13,500) and continued tiered per-capita giving ($10,570).
5. Christ Presbyterian Church, Huntington Beach, not available
6. Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, Los Alamitos, a lump sum of $240,000
7. Community Presbyterian Church, Long Beach, a lump sum payment of approximately $1,113,000 upon close of sale of that property

The Synod of Southern California and Hawaii’s Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) issued a stay of enforcement on the presbytery’s actions and the churches remained a part of the presbytery, despite the fact that joint solutions – which included monetary settlements from the churches for their property – were agreed upon by both the individual churches and the presbytery.

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