Members of a Kentucky church voted unanimously Sunday to remove their pastor whom they accuse of egregious power grabs and unfair silencing of concerned parishioners.
Members of Southern Acres Christian Church voted 173 to 0 Sunday to remove their current pastor, Cameron McDonald, whom they allege unfairly changed church bylaws and consolidated all church authority, including finances, to himself, his wife Erika, and his friend Pastor Tim Jones, according to the Lexington Herald Leader. The vote, which McDonald previously claimed was illegal, comes in the wake of several concerned members receiving notice that they were barred from church property after demanding answers from McDonald about changes he made to the church’s leadership structure.
“The people have spoken,” Chance Staley, one of the barred church members, told the newspaper. “Democracy has really gotten to play out here. I think it’s a very important lesson that you have to stand up to injustice.”
Barred congregants Chad Martin and James Keogh filed a lawsuit against McDonald in November 2017 to prevent him and his wife from using church funds or making any legal decisions concerning church real estate. The congregants filed their lawsuit after McDonald allegedly rebuffed repeated attempts to meet as a church body to address concerns about his leadership as pastor.
McDonald dissolved the church’s nine person board of elders, created a new three-person board of elders with himself, his wife, and Jones, created new bylaws without the church’s consent that gave the new board all authority over church decisions and finances, and put himself and the other two board members on the church payroll, Congregants said. Congregants also alleged McDonald misused $100,000 in church funds.
Several parishioners interrupted one of McDonald’s Sunday sermons to demand answers concerning the changes he implemented, since he would not allow for a church meeting. McDonald refused to address them, witnesses said and noted that “an undercover police officer threatened arrest.”
The vocal congregants were escorted out of the church building. Martin and Keogh filed their lawsuit soon afterward.
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The congregation’s vote affirmed not only the removal of McDonald, but also the formation of a new nine person board of elders, the rejection of McDonald’s bylaws, and tasking the new board with hiring a new pastor.
McDonald previously declared the resolution and the vote illegal via a letter from his lawyer, R. Austin Wilkerson, arguing that according to the bylaws he implemented any resolution must be approved by the board of elders, over which he holds sway.
“It has come to the Elder Board’s attention that an illegal and contentious meeting has been set for February 4, 2018. James 4:2 warns that those who lust for what they don’t have (envy) will fight and wage war to take it from others,” the letter read. “Under the Church’s Bylaws, only the Elders have the doctrinal authority and governing authority to call a meeting, remove the Senior Pastor, or otherwise conduct the lawful business decisions or make the doctrinal decrees of SoAcres Church.”
The dissenting congregants claim that McDonald’s bylaws are invalid since he never put them to a vote among the congregation. The resolution, they say, will move forward one way or another.
“This process should be very straightforward,” Staley said. “If it does not become straightforward, we will just take the legal actions required. … Even if that means that the police have to escort him out.”
Staley also clarified to the Kentucky newspaper that McDonald and those who follow him were welcome to continue attending the church. McDonald was simply not welcome to lead it anymore. The new leadership would not, according to Staley, bar McDonald from church property as McDonald did to those who questioned him.
“We’re not going to lock him out,” Staley added.
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