LAKELAND, Fla. Without Walls International Church, a local mega-church that has been inactive for two years, is fighting its second foreclosure in five years, this one filed by Evangelical Christian CU, which says the region’s biggest church owes it $13.9 million.
The 9,600-seat church, formerly known as Carpenter's Home Church, has not held services since August 2011 and had its power shut off March 27.
The Church has filed a counter-suit in state court charging that the California credit union acted inappropriately toward church founder Randy White and the church and seeking almost $24 million in damages.
Evangelical Christian, one of the biggest church lenders in the country, has foreclosed on about 40 church properties since 2008 out of about 1,000 loans.
The suit claims that Evangelical Christian CEO Mark Holbrook improperly encouraged White’s ex-wife, Paula White, to take more than $2 million worth of music and video equipment from the Tampa church for use when she left in January 2012 to head her own ministries, the New Destiny Christian Center in suburban Orlando.
Jac Latour, chief spokesman for the $1.1 billion credit union, declined to discuss specifics of the case, other than to emphasize that the credit union works with struggling borrowers to help work-out loans. “We’ve worked long and hard with ministries who need our assistance,” he told the Credit Union Journal.
The Florida mega-church went into foreclosure the first time in 2008 and the credit union granted a mortgage modification the following year on the 63-acre property. The credit union also holds a mortgage on Without Walls' Tampa property, and the church also is challenging foreclosure proceedings on that parcel.
A hearing on the credit union dispute is scheduled for September.
