Tug-of-war splits church into fragments

Jul 25, 2010 News

… Church of God in crisis

The local Church of God is in crisis with the head of the reformation movement, Pastor Samuel E. Paul, accusing an expatriate clergyman of attempting to hijack the organisation.
Pastor Paul expressed the belief that the expatriate clergyman is using local members to usurp the powers of the Guyana-based steering committee of the church.
Paul is the Pastor of the Bel Air Street Church of God in Albouystown, which is affiliated to the Church of God in Anderson, Indiana, USA, and is supervised by the Caribbean Atlantic Association.
In the early 1990s, the church was experiencing some problems in terms of ‘vision’ as Paul described it.
Because of dwindling membership, the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly, which is based in Barbados, stepped in and in 1995 it gave a mandate to the expatriate clergyman to provide spiritual guidance in an effort to revive the movement.
According to Paul, the expatriate was to work as a Non-resident Missionary.
However, the clergyman, as Pastor Paul put it, never did anything substantial to improve the standing of the church.
Instead, he advised that the church sell three of its properties in the city and centralise its operations.
The properties in question were the Bel Air Street Church of God, the John Street Church of God and the general office located at 195 Charlotte Street.
“He convinced us that what he was doing had the blessings of the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly. He treated us at restaurants and gave us gifts,” Pastor Paul told this newspaper.
Later the expatriate clergyman disbanded several church boards — the Boards of Trustees, Ordination and Christian Education.
All of this was done with local members being of the view that they were mandated by the Caribbean Atlantic body.
Then with the backings of some members of the local Church of God, a steering committee, which according to Paul, is unconstitutional, was established and the name of the church was changed. Some of the buildings put up for sale.
The Buxton Church of God was not included in the intended process.
According to Paul, the Bel Air Street Church of God, of which he was appointed pastor with 60 members, remained untouched because the members there refused to go along with the new scheme.
He stated that the expatriate was able to solicit funds in Canada for the renovation of the Bel Air Street Church but refused to disburse the money until the church had a pastor of his choice.
“I wrote to the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly informing him of what the (expatriate) was doing. I also wrote to all the affiliated Church of God in Guyana and urged them to maintain the body,” Paul explained.
The expatriate was asked to explain his actions and subsequently had his status of Non-resident Missionary revoked by the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly.
However, he challenged the move since by then he had already managed to secure the backing of a large portion of the local congregation.
“He tried to get a concerned group to stop visiting the Church of God. In actual fact he hijacked the church,” Paul stated.
Things got worse when the expatriate tried to take over the church at which Paul was pasturing— the Bel Air Street Church of God.
“He planned a service at my church and I sent him a lawyer’s letter to prevent him from coming. But he said that he is the bishop and that he was coming to lead. Despite this, he eventually convened a meeting at the John Street Church of God with his followers among whom were some very prominent persons,” Paul said.
The expatriate clergyman then proceeded to address the congregation, telling them that he was dismissing Pastor Paul from his post because of a letter he had written to the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly.
“While I was leaving, he said to me, ‘you have forty eight hours to hand over the church keys. You are dismissed.’ I did not take him on and I continued to fellowship at the Bel Air Street Church of God. I continued to pastor there,” Paul explained.
He said that no one man, not even the chairman can arbitrarily fire a Pastor. To do so, Paul explained, the Executive Council will have to meet and then the board of ordination will put up a report to the Executive Council.
Despite all of this the expatriate clergyman subsequently turned up during a Sunday service at the Bel Air Street Church of God with the intention of forcibly removing Paul from his position as Pastor.
With the situation threatening to get out of hand, Paul was invited to talk the matter over.
But Paul insisted that the expatriate clergyman had no authority to make decisions for the church since his services as Non-resident Missionary was terminated by the Caribbean Atlantic Assembly.
“I’m the minister here, he can’t come and preach here. I started the service right away. The congregation was unaware of what was taking place,” Paul said.
Sensing that it was unchristian-like to have such bickering in the church, Pastor Paul relented and allowed the expatriate to address his congregation.
But to his surprise, the expatriate relegated him to assistant pastor and replaced him with someone else.
After the expatriate left, Pastor Paul resumed his duties at the Bel Air Street Church of God, while the other affiliate churches remained committed to the expatriate.
Eventually a General Assembly was convened to elect a new General Council and all the affiliated churches were invited.
But according to Paul, those churches which had now fallen under the control of the expatriate were ordered not to attend.
Paul became Chairman and he immediately instructed the board of trustees to file an injunction preventing the sale of the church’s assets by the expatriate and his group.
The injunction was granted but instead of making an additional ruling, the judge according to Paul, indicated that he will trust that the church in later days will mend the differences and move on.
Both Paul and the expatriate were subsequently invited to the headquarters of the Caribbean Assembly to resolve the impasse.
According to Paul, the expatriate privately offered to buy him a minibus to induce him to withdraw the matter from the court.
“I told the assembly what he had offered me and I informed them that I was not for sale,” Paul told Kaieteur News.
Paul stated that despite this, the expatriate proceeded to sell one of the properties, while his faction continued to go under the name Covenant Life Centre of Guyana.
One of the church’s buildings on Charlotte Street was advertised for sale by a prominent real estate agent, who subsequently withdrew from the deal when shown the injunction.
However, another real estate agent undertook to sell the property prompting the General Council to publish a counter advertisement advising that the building was not for sale.
The Church of God was established in Guyana in 1914.

Pensioner claims fraud by NIS

Charles McPherson, 83, is accusing the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) of taking advantage of him and defrauding him of his benefits.
The pensioner said that he is owed $180,000 in Medicare/pension benefits from NIS and he has all his relevant documentation to prove his case.
McPherson disclosed that he received a notice to visit NIS on June 30, 2008 for his invalidity benefits, and after the appointment he was told by a representative that he would receive a reply from NIS. However, he was given the royal run around until January 19, 2009 when he was told by a representative of NIS that there was something recorded in the system that is to be awarded to him.
“When I went to claim for my money I was told that there is nothing registered in the system for me. All of a sudden it was erased, suddenly!”

McPherson revealed that after paying more visits to enquire about the issue with the payments, he was told that his file was closed and the necessary money already paid out. “I did not receive any money from them for that payment, and there is no signature saying I received anything, and they told me my signature was not there either, so who took my money?”The disgruntled pensioner said that he is appealing to the relevant authorities to delve into the matter since he is being taken advantage of by NIS.