DETROIT — A battle over control of a Detroit church came to a head recently when members of one faction changed the locks on the westside house of worship, sparking a confrontation that ended with the pastor of the opposing group handcuffed in the back of a police squad car and later claiming officers had "aided in a church-jacking."
Police officials say they're investigating a complaint that was filed by 180 Church Pastor Lorenzo Sewell following the June 7 incident outside the church at 13660 Stansbury near Grand River. Sewell claims officers took the side of a group called Stand With Evangel by cuffing and detaining him in the car for about a half-hour.
Stand With Evangel member George Bogle, whose father founded Evangel Church in 1968, said an appeals court ruling last year gave his group control over the church and insists Sewell "lost his kingdom and now refuses to leave after we fired him."
Sewell's attorney, Todd Perkins, on June 12 filed an emergency motion in Wayne County Circuit Court seeking a temporary restraining order. Judge Kathleen McCarthy on Saturday granted the order "giving me my church back," said Sewell, who held services in the facility Sunday.
Replied Bogle: "It was an ex parte hearing, meaning we didn't get to give our side, and (Sewell) is claiming he's a tenant who was improperly put out." Bogle said a June 29 hearing has been set. "We'll get to tell our side then," he said.
Sewell, who was elected pastor by the church board in 2018, said he was illegally banned from his facility after the locks were changed, and that he had to hold services in various locations.
"We had to have Bible study in the methadone clinic," said Sewell, who preached Wednesday night to about 40 worshipers in the Clinton Street Bethlehem Church annex, four miles east of the Stansbury building. "Those police officers watched them change my locks and handcuffed me when I protested. They aided in a church-jacking."
According to Perkins' motion, Stand With Evangel served Sewell with a notice in May telling him to leave the church property, but the filing said the notice wasn't legal.
"They can't just show up with a piece of paper and evict someone," he said. "I believe my client has been violated without due process and has used the Detroit Police Department as the unlawful muscle."
The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners' Office of the Chief Investigator has launched a probe into why Sewell was detained by the 2nd Precinct officers. Detroit police attorney Grant Ha said there's also an ongoing "command investigation" that includes reviewing the officers' body-worn cameras.
The Rev. Jerome Warfield, the office's chief investigator, said his office received the complaint, and he expects the probe to wrap up within 30 days.
Ha said he met via Zoom last week with attorneys from both factions and said no agreement could be reached.
"We tried to amicably come to a solution, to no avail," Ha said. "I suggested they go to court where this rightly belongs because it's not a matter for police."
The confrontation outside the church, a portion of which was captured by a surveillance camera mounted near the front entrance, was the culmination of a years-long fight over whether the church's decisions can be made by its members or board. The Michigan Court of Appeals last year upheld a Wayne County Circuit Court ruling that found the members had control over church matters.
"The members don't want Sewell as the pastor, so after the appeals court ruling we voted him out and served him with his termination papers — but he refuses to leave," Bogle said. "We went to the police before we changed the locks and showed them the documentation that we had control of the church."
Sewell arrived at the church as the locks were being changed, with officers from the 2nd Precinct already on the scene. What happened next is in dispute.
"I walked up to the church and said my name's on the building," Sewell said. "I had the church key in my hand, and before I could put it in the door, the police said, 'Put your hands behind your back.' They cuffed me and detained me in the back of the car for about 30 minutes, then they told me I wasn't the pastor anymore."
Bogle said Sewell "showed up and was very aggressive, and tried to push past the police, so they put him in the car for a while to calm him down."
The surveillance camera footage provided by Sewell is without sound. The video shows police officers and others milling around the entrance before an officer leads the pastor to a car with his hands cuffed behind his back. The footage does not show what happened prior to Sewell being cuffed, since the interaction happened off-camera.
Lev Montgomery, an elder with 180 Church, said the dispute has prevented the church from carrying out its mission.
"This is a shame because our church serves the urban community in many ways," Montgomery said. "There are needs that aren't being met because of all this. We help people get medical and dental service, and all sorts of other services. We're trying to minister our of our church, but we're locked out."
History of a rift
The dispute goes back to the founding of the church 55 years ago and revolves around how the church is governed.
When George Bogle Sr. established Evangel Church in 1968, the "constitution stated that governance of the Church would be vested in the Church's members, and that the Church's leadership would be charged with carrying out the will of the members," the May 26, 2022, Michigan Court of Appeals ruling said.
The senior Bogle, who died in 2021, for years hosted "Night Vision," a radio show in which listeners called in prayers. He also hosted "The Spirit of Detroit," a live religious broadcast that aired during the 1970s-80s on the former WGPR (Channel 62).
"My father was a very well-known minister in Detroit," Bogle said. "He stayed on as founding pastor until 2017, and retired when he was 80."
In 2018, the church board of elders named Sewell senior pastor.
"When Sewell was selected by the (church board of elders), it was not presented to the members," Bogle said. "At one time, this church had 700 members, 500 of whom would show up to services on any given Sunday. After Sewell became pastor, about half the membership left. He'd fired a bunch of people ... without notifying the members and acted like a dictator."
Bogle said the church was established to be member-driven.
"My father specifically set up this church so that the members had 100% say over church business," Bogle said. "He could've set it up so that he had complete control, but he clearly wanted this to be a member-driven church."
In 2011, prior to Sewell's arrival, the constitution was amended to change the church's power structure.
"Under the 2011 amendments, the church's governing board — now referred to as the board of elders — would select who was to serve as senior pastor of the church," the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling said. "In turn, the senior pastor would nominate members to the board of elders, and the sitting board of elders would then confirm or deny the nomination by majority vote."
Then in 2019, the church's constitution and bylaws were amended again, this time "explicitly stating that the church's members had no voting power; any vote of the membership would only be advisory," according to the court ruling.
In 2020, Bogle's group sued Sewell in Wayne Circuit Court, alleging that the board of elders had adopted the 2019 amendments without church members' consent. The lawsuit asked the court to rule that the church had been established on a "membership" rather than "directorship" basis as defined by the Michigan Nonprofit Corporation Act. The filing argued that if the church had been established on a membership basis, it would render the 2019 bylaw amendments invalid.
Sewell's group contended that the church had changed into a directorship-based organization under the 2011 and 2019 amendments, and that the court should avoid getting involved in the matter because of the "ecclesiastical abstention doctrine." The doctrine was established by a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prevents courts from adjudicating claims that a church didn't follow its own rules and internal policies.
But the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine didn't apply to the question of how Evangel Church had been set up. That question, the court ruled, was a corporate law question.
The ruling added: "Resolving the parties' dispute did not require the trial court to interpret any of the Church's religious doctrine or to pass judgment on what it believed to be the form of corporate governance most in line with the Church's discipline or values. It simply required the trial court to apply Michigan statutory law against the language of the (articles of incorporation)."
In January, the church members voted Sewell out as senior pastor, but in a recent court filing, Perkins argued that the vote was invalid because only certain members were allowed to participate.
"I just want my church back," Sewell said.
That's not going to happen, according to Bogle.
"The members fired him, but he refuses to go away," Bogle said.
-----------
