In a gray sharkskin suit and aviator sunglasses, Pastor Christopher Benek stands on a patch of astroturf at the edge of the First Miami Presbyterian church parking lot. “Here’s the thing,” he says. “Right now this is a parking lot.”
A developer has a plan to make it much more than that, and Benek is buying in.
Benek was hired in 2018 as a “crisis-management specialist” to lead First Miami Presbyterian, the oldest congregation in the city, away from what seemed like impending ruin. The church has been a fixture in the community since 1896, peaking in membership at about 1,400 in the late 1980s before dwindling to 140 in the early aughts and continuing to decline.
