Foreclosures Don’t Spare the House of God

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20081227/ZNYT01/812273003/1109/SPORTS?Title=Foreclosures_Don__x2019_t_Spare_the_House_of_God

[The Gainsville Sun] 27 Dec 2008--Foreclosure filings have fallen on the doorstep of 254 properties, or 0.31 percent of the 82,441 churches studied. The percentage is higher when churches without mortgages are excluded. St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Easton, Md., exemplifies the optimistic assumptions that fed church lending. St. Andrew’s had only 35 members in 2005 when it moved from a rented storefront to a Gothic revival-style chapel built in 1866. The building cost $795,000, but the church borrowed $50,000 from one lender and $850,000 from the Talbot Bank of Easton, according to W. David Morse, a vice president of the bank.

The church hoped its congregation would expand at a time when some Episcopalians were leaving their churches to join Anglican parishes. But by early this year, St. Andrew’s had not grown much and had fallen behind on its mortgage. By August, as interest racked up, it owed Talbot Bank $884,657.

At auction this month, Talbot took possession of the church for $700,000, giving the congregation weeks to move out unless the auction is contested.

“In hindsight, any loan that goes bad will invariably look ‘ambitious,’ ” Mr. Morse said. “At the time the loan was made, the board of directors obviously believed” in the vision and projected growth of the church.

Fewer than 30 people attended the church service on the Sunday before Christmas, and most kept their coats on, shivering in the cold because the heat had been turned down to save money.

“I bid your prayers for this parish and that God will continue to sustain it,” Bishop Joel Johnson told the congregation.

Small congregations do not need Gothic revival-style chapels. They should have stayed in the storefront until they had grown large enough to purchase a modest parcel of land and erect a modest multipurpose building.