‘Promise’ was never that church wouldn’t expand

John Huffman

Up to this point, I have resisted many an urge to respond to the

various well-thought-out opinions published during the last several

years of debate over our church’s endeavor to build a youth/family

center and add additional parking.

But I must now speak up clearly, because there is nothing more

important to me, as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, than my

personal integrity. If what Barbara Rawlings is alleging in her

Friday commentary in the Pilot, “A ‘promise’ that won’t be soon

forgotten,” is true, my spiritual credibility is gone, I should be

removed from the ministry for dishonesty, and St. Andrew’s would be

both unethical and immoral in its 10-year planning for its ministry

facility remodel.

For more than two years now, Rawlings, whom I still consider a

friend, has been accusing me of having promised, back in 1982, that

St. Andrew’s would never again add to its facilities. On several

occasions, even in public venues, I have tried to clarify for her

what I did promise at that meeting, and she is unwilling to accept my

version, even as I am unwilling to accept the factuality of her

memory of my commitment, as genuine as that may be on her part.

Sidestepping all of the many specific details she mentions in her

letter to the editor, some of which also could be debated, let me

address only that so-called “a ‘promise’ that won’t be soon

forgotten.”

There was no such promise that St. Andrew’s would never again

expand. Even at that time, we had hoped to include a youth center in

our early ‘80s building program. But we saw no way of paying for it,

as our building costs had so escalated in those years that she and

her colleagues had used every bit of political pressure possible to

derail that architectural plan, carefully worked out at the guidance

and direction of the Newport Beach Planning Commission. They had

requested that we have an open campus, with a building at the center

of our land that would go down into the ground and up into the air.

It is true that, at the last minute, then Mayor Jackie Heather

called a meeting to establish a compromise. We did accept it, at the

loss of close to $200,000 in architectural fees for a design that was

up for the National Church Architecture Award of the Year. At the

moment we made that compromise to go back to the drawing board and

redesign the whole project -- with the high-density sanctuary

structure to be positioned at the farthest point from the residential

neighborhoodRawlings and her colleagues expressed an additional

concern, which we took very seriously. Noting that the church had

purchased 10 homes on Clay Street, which were to be demolished to

provide the present 250 parking spaces we now have, they expressed a

great fear that we would continue to buy homes on the other side of

Clay Street, encroaching into their neighborhood. They asked for one

more compromise, a word of assurance from the church that we would

not continue to buy up properties on the other side of Clay Street.

As a pastor, I am not free to make unilateral promises that will

forever bind my congregation, unless they are formally agreed upon by

all parties and put into writing. We were, even at that meeting,

informed by the city that we should do everything possible to obtain

additional parking. What I did promise, with the permission of the

building committee members present, was that never would St. Andrew’s

in future land acquisition make any movement across Clay Street. We

would protect the residential neighborhood in that way.

That is the promise I/we made. Nothing more, nothing less. We have

faithfully kept that promise and will continue so to do, although

this letter to the editor is the first time that it has ever been put

in writing.

We all know that in any recollection of events by eyewitnesses,

there will be varying perceptions of what happened. I do not question

the sincerity of Rawling’s viewpoint. I simply say I could not for a

moment live with my conscience and have helped the church in its

10-year endeavor to build a youth/family center if I had made the

promise she says I made.

My hope and prayer is that such accusations of dishonesty can be

put aside forever. Every resident of our community is entitled to an

opinion as to the merits and demerits of this ministry remodel. St.

Andrew’s does want to be a good neighbor. We have been an integral

part of this community since 1948, and for 27 of those years, I have

been privileged to serve as the pastor. We, along with several other

Presbyterian churches, founded Hoag Hospital, Presbyterian. For 24

years we have served the larger community with our divorce recovery

workshops. For the last 10 years we have been investing as much as

$200,000 a year to fund Shalimar Learning Center for disadvantaged

children. Positioned as we are between Newport Harbor High School and

Ensign Intermediate School , we want to have an increasingly positive

ministry to the youth of our area.

We plan, with the Lord’s help and in the name of Jesus Christ, to

continue to minister in the community at our present site for many

years to come. I, personally, am coming to the last years of my

pastoral ministry. The easiest thing for me and our church’s present

leadership to do would be to be intimidated by such allegations,

lessen our vision, free ourselves of the thousands of hours of

planning, the hard work of fundraising and be content with the status

quo. Instead, we are attempting to provide for the next quarter

century the facilities that will best minister to persons of all

ages.

We have already compromised our plans by decreasing the square

footage by 40% and agreeing to many site usage limitations and

traffic flow patterns in order to improve the quality of community

life. We have compromised as much as possible without completely

gutting our remodel plans and hurting our present ministry.

Let me express our deep appreciation to so many of our neighbors

who have privately and publicly assured us of their support of what

we are trying to do. The physical shoe of our land limitation has

told the foot how large it can get. St. Andrew’s has been a 4,000- to

4,700-member church for the last 40 years. The goal is not to be

bigger. It is to be better, providing an ever-increasing quality of

ministry to the immediate neighborhood and the larger Newport Harbor

area.

* JOHN HUFFMAN is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of

Newport Beach.