Hello Everyone, We are looking for help on an issue we have been working to get resolved for the last few years.
The plight to save small churches in the United Methodist Conference, especially small African American churches throughout the state of Maryland continues. Despite hearings before both the House and Senate last year, no action on this measure was taken. Our faithful believers continue to fight.
Specifically, we are concerned about seeking repeal of Annotated Code of Maryland Sections 5-321 through 5-328. In summary, this law keeps the designated property owners of the churches that are a member of the United Methodist Conference from rightful ownership of their property regardless of what is stated on the deeds to the church. Unfortunately, a lot of the small churches have been a part of the UM conference for many years and discovered this issue when one of the churches chose to sever their membership with the UM conference. Due to the law, they had to pay a sum of money for a church that was previously owned with no debt because the debt had been paid for and built by the slave descendants and their families many years ago. Since this law was signed into effect by Gov. Mandel in 1976, he has since stated it was a mistake and was unconstitutional. The Governor even issued a letter last year to this effect. We have been continuing to fight this repeal for the last 4 years with no success. We are looking to find more support for our cause and correct the injustice this law has imposed on our small church community. There have been several small churches that have been closed and the property sold by the conference, even though the conference did not purchase this property from the rightful owners of the church. This law has kept the small churches from having any legal standing to fight the sale of the property. This has also caused Cemetery issues and concerns, where the family members are being denied access and some have even been turned into pastures for farm animals.
Any support would be a blessing in this spiritual fight for our small church community.
We have received word from our State Congressional Sponsors that this measure has been assigned the following bill numbers for 2014:
- House Bill 840 sponsored by Delegate Aisha Braveboy, Prince Georges County, MD
- Senate Bill 347 sponsored by Sen. C.Anthony Muse for Prince Georges County, MD
- The Senate Bill 347 will be heard before the Senate Committee on Thursday, February 20, 2014, at 1 pm.
- The House Bill 840 will be heard before the House Committee on Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at 1 pm.
We appreciate any and all interest, direction, insights that you as concerned believers, supporters, informers can provide. Please come out and join us in this ongoing struggle. Thank you and have a blessed day!!
Save our small churches
saveoursmallchurches@yahoo.com Molinda McDonald
See the list below of Emails for the Senators, Senate List for 2014
thomas.v.mike.miller@senate.state.md.us
joanne.benson@senate.state.md.us
david.brinkley@senate.state.md.us
jim.brochin@senate.state.md.us
richard.colburn@senate.state.md.us
joan.carter.conway@senate.state.md.us
ulysses.currie@senate.state.md.us
james.degrange@senate.state.md.us
george.edwards@senate.state.md.us
brian.feldman@senate.state.md.us
bill.ferguson@senate.state.md.us
jennie.forehand@senate.state.md.us
brian.frosh@senate.state.md.us
joseph.getty@senate.state.md.us
lisa.gladden@senate.state.md.us
barry.glassman@senate.state.md.us
steve.hershey@senate.state.md.us
nancy.jacobs@senate.state.md.us
jb.jennings@senate.state.md.us
verna.jones@senate.state.md.us
edward.kasemeyer@senate.state.md.us
delores.kelley@senate.state.md.us
allan.kittleman@senate.state.md.us
katherine.klausmeier@senate.state.md.us
richard.madaleno@senate.state.md.us
roger.manno@senate.state.md.us
james.mathias@senate.state.md.us
nathaniel.mcfadden@senate.state.md.us
thomas.mcclain.middleton@senate.state.md.us
karen.montgomery@senate.state.md.us
anthony.muse@senate.state.md.us
douglas.peters@senate.state.md.us
paul.pinsky@senate.state.md.us
catherine.pugh@senate.state.md.us
victor.ramirez@senate.state.md.us
jamie.raskin@senate.state.md.us
edward.reilly@senate.state.md.us
james.robey@senate.state.md.us
jim.rosapepe@senate.state.md.us
christopher.shank@senate.state.md.us
bryan.simonaire@senate.state.md.us
norman.stone@senate.state.md.us
ronald.young@senate.state.md.us
bobby.zirkin@senate.state.md.us
In Case you don’t know who your senator is here is the link to go to: http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmmain.aspx...
Please email your senator if you are in support of this bill. We had our hearing yesterday and want to let them know it is not just 3 churches that are affected by this issue and are not the only churches concerned. If you as a church get into trouble and you are unable to adhere to the conference guidelines and want to leave the conference the property of your church will not remain with the rightful persons listed on the Deed (other than conference) due to the Law currently in place.
If you need any info on this you can email saveoursmallchurches@yahoo.com and address the email to Molinda McDonald.