PALM RIVER-CLAIR MEL, Fla. — A congregation in Hillsborough County is now suing its former church for closing its doors and trying to sell the property to developers.
But that congregation still worships together every Sunday, inside the Inglesia de Dios Pentacostal Church in Palm River, this visiting congregation rents the sanctuary and worships.
Up until two years ago, the parishioners worshipped at the Palm River Campus of Bell Shoals Baptist Church, which has several locations in Hillsborough County. Despite consistent attendance, the congregation says they were told the church was dying and it closed.
“They just closed the doors and we had no idea what was going on as a congregation,” says congregation member Carmen Mendoza.
Then last year, a restrictive covenant prohibiting the church from being sold was altered, even though it required unanimous approval from the congregation. Documents claim there was a meeting of members to vote but no one in the congregation was a part of it.
“We questioned the validity of the documents that they've somehow unraveled a church covenant deed that was put in place,” says congregation member Robert Almand, who’s helped lead the congregation to formally call themselves the Christ-Centered Community Church of Tampa.
Now, they've been fighting to stop the Bell Shoals from selling the property to Lennar to build 70 townhomes.
“One of the hardest things I’ve ever said in front of a church was we felt like as leaders of this church that we needed to file a lawsuit against Bell Shoals Church.
After concerns fell on deaf ears at Hillsborough County Zoning, they decided a lawsuit was the only way, they say, to hold Bell Shoals Baptist Church accountable.
“We continue to pray for Bell Shoals, for the congregation, for the leadership,” says Almand. “We love our brothers and sisters at Bell Shoals. There’s no animosity there.”
10 Tampa Bay tried to talk to the senior pastors at bell shoals for a response to the lawsuit, but they haven't reached back out to us. No court dates for the lawsuit have been set yet.
While the dispute works its way through the legal system, the congregation will keep meeting every Sunday, even if the building isn't their own.