Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO is currently involved in a lawsuit regarding church property with Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the San Gabriel Presbytery of PCUSA.
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, located in Rowland Heights, was one of the largest Korean PCUSA congregations in California, and had pursued to be dismissed from the PCUSA under its presbytery (San Gabriel Presbytery)'s Gracious Dismissal Policy (GDP) since 2012, but the presbytery stopped the GDP process before its completion earlier this year. The minority congregation that desired to remain within PCUSA stayed in the presbytery, while the majority of the congregants (including then senior pastor Reverend Tae Hyung Ko) disaffiliated themselves from the PCUSA and joined the ECO, becoming Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO. The ECO congregation sent a letter to the San Gabriel Presbytery of its decision to affiliate with the ECO in late March, and officially joined the denomination in May.
Currently, some 30 members remain in Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and some 900 members are a part of Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO.
However, the San Gabriel Presbytery and Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) sued Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO, Reverend Tae Hyung Ko, and the church session members for continuing to use the same church property even after disaffiliating themselves from the PCUSA.
“The AC [Administrative Commission] has been informed that ECO has accepted Rev. Ko and his followers … as a member church, and that ECO has specified that ECO claims no interest in the property,” stated the San Gabriel Presbytery in a statement of resolutions on July 6. “The Presbytery of San Gabriel has not dismissed KGSPC. On this basis, the AC determines that the ECO church is an unincorporated fellowship of ECO, with no rights to the property and no right to utilize the tax-exempt status or corporate standing of Korean Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of Rowland Heights, a particular congregation of the PC(USA).”
The presbytery filed a lawsuit on July 9 with the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Previously, Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church held two congregational votes to leave the PCUSA. On March 23, 2014, with representatives of the San Gabriel Presbytery present, 817 members voted, of which 738 voted in favor of dismissal from the PCUSA, 74 voted against, and 5 votes were discounted. On March 22, 2015, 745 members out of 852 total members of the former Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church congregation cast their votes on disaffiliation with the PCUSA, and out of those, 709 voted to leave the denomination, while 33 opposed leaving, and 3 were dismissed due to illegibility. Under the presbytery’s GDP, the next step after the results of the first vote in 2014 would have been the presbytery’s vote on dismissing the church. However, the presbytery stopped the GDP process after a minority group continued to persist that the church should remain in the PCUSA.
Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO also states it previously offered to give the San Gabriel Presbytery $1.28 million — twice the $630,000 amount that was initially requested under the presbytery’s GDP — to keep the property.
Meanwhile, the ECO Southern California Presbytery confirmed that it received Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of ECO and Reverend Tae Hyung Ko out of a unanimous approval “following their congregation’s March 22, 2015 congregational vote (92 percent approval) to disaffiliate from the San Gabriel Presbytery (PCUSA) due to that body’s failure to finalize the terms of the Gracious Separation Agreement," according to a letter sent to the San Gabriel Presbytery in May.
“Congregational affiliation with ECO is not dependent upon owning property, a church building, or possessing any legal interest in sanctuary property,” the ECO presbytery added. “We make no claim on any property which Good Shepherd may own or in which they claim an ownership interest, and we assert no interest in any such property.”
