According to San Francisco AP on January 5, 2009, California’s supreme court ruled Monday that three Southern parishes that left the U.S. Episcopal Church cannot retain ownership of their church buildings and property. The three California parishes include: St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood. In 2004 these three parishes pulled out of the 2.1 million-member national Episcopal Church, and have sought to retain property ownership. Each church held deeds in their names to the property. The court ruled that Episcopal Church canons made it clear the property belonged to the individual parishes only as long as they remained part of the bigger church. “When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it,” Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin wrote for the seven-member court.

This court decision will affect other Episcopal Church property issues in Pittsburgh (see related link), Fort Worth, Texas, and Quincy, Ill., where dioceses recently voted to split from the national church. The lessons we continue to learn from this court ruling relate to substance over form. According to the California case, the Episcopal Church canons dictated the property ownership, not the deed. Difficult dilemma faced by these congregations and the related diocese.

Does your church have an operating agreement that designates property ownership? Who bears the risk of ownership?

On Wednesday, January 7th, RCO sponsored the Executive Exchange at the Funding Information Center. At the beginning of the presentation Colleen Colton, Executive Director of Guardianship Services in Fort Worth, stood up and told a story she had heard during her childhood. We believe it is a very important concept to remember for these economic times. She graciously gave us permission to share it on our blog. The author is unknown. If you know who wrote this please let us know so we can give proper credit. It is a story of a man who sold hot dogs during the Great Depression.

THE MAN WHO SOLD HOT DOGS

There was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs.
He was hard of hearing, so he had no radio.
He had trouble with his eyes, so he read no newspaper.
But he sold good hot dogs.
He put signs up on the highway telling how good they were.
He stood on the side of the road and cried “Buy a hot dog, Mister?”
And people bought.
He increased his meat and bun orders.
He bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

He finally got his son home from college to help him out.
But then something happened.
His son said, “Father, haven’t you been listening to the radio?”
“Haven’t you been reading the newspaper?”
There’s a big depression.”
“The European situation is terrible.
The domestic situation is worse.”
Whereupon the father thought, “Well, my son has been to college: he
reads the papers and listens to the radio, he ought to know.”
So his father cut down on his meat and bun orders, took down his
advertising signs, and no longer bothered to stand out on the highway
to sell his hot dogs.

And his hot dog sales fell almost overnight.
“You’re right, son.” the father said to the boy.
“We are certainly in the middle of a great depression.”

Now I am not advocating not listening to the radio and not reading the newspaper. I am not saying you shouldn’t prepare for and make decisions about your organization in light of the economy. What I do think this story is saying is if your hot dogs are still selling, why take down your signs, why stop spreading the word. There are still opportunities out there to sell hot dogs!