Some say the church, about to build a multimillion- dollar sanctuary, may be losing members and money over the dispute.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published March 21, 2004
CLEARWATER - It seems the gossip never ends about Calvary Baptist, the oldest and most prominent church in Clearwater, a place where millionaires worship alongside truckers.
Some say the church, on the cusp of building a new multimillion-dollar sanctuary a few miles away, may be losing members and money.
It has an interim pastor who had admitted committing adultery while serving at his previous church, a congregation with some members who can forgive but not trust, members who have fled to other churches, taking their tithes and donations with them and a protective 24-member deacon body which has formed a tight grip on the church.
Calvary is a church in transition, undertaking a search for a new permanent senior pastor while at the same time beginning construction of a brand new, $22-million complex on McMullen-Booth Road. Site work on the new facility has already started.
Meanwhile, church deacons say a committee has been formed for a nationwide search for the right senior pastor to lead them. The Rev. Ken Alford, the church's current interim pastor, is in the running for the job.
But that doesn't sit well with some of the church's 5,598 active and inactive members. Felix Kaplun, a 25-year member, is so frustrated and upset about Calvary's current leadership, he only attends the church occasionally now. He said since Alford was named temporary minister after the resignation of the previous pastor, the Rev. Jerry Tidwell, in June 2003, he and hundreds of others have left the congregation to worship at other Southern Baptist churches, and taken their money with them.
A church in transition
For years, Calvary was rock solid. Membership peaked 10 years ago during the 26-year leadership of the Rev. Bill Anderson. When he retired in 2002, a search committee found a replacement, the Rev. Jerry Tidwell, who took over at Easter that year. A no-nonsense pastor, his style clashed with some staff members.
Unbeknownst to some in the church, Tidwell suffered from depression and Lyme disease, a condition which can cause fever, malaise, fatigue, headache and other symptoms. Tidwell took medication to treat it.
In the early morning of May 15, 2003, Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrested Tidwell for driving while impaired, and the church suspended him for 30 days. Later, a toxicology test proved negative for any illegal substances or alcohol, and the charges were dismissed. But days later, the church gave Tidwell a no-confidence vote at a rare special meeting anyway. He resigned shortly after and moved away.
"The staff undermined Tidwell," said Kaplun. "They didn't like him. I loved that man, he was very kind, very sweet."
Kaplun, who had signed a pledge card promising to donate a sum of money to the church, decided against it.
"I said, no way," Kaplun said.
But Anderson said he thinks "Tidwell and Calvary was a mismatch," that it just didn't work.
"Part of Calvary's difficulty was for 26 years, she never called a pastor, she didn't know how to respond to a new pastor," he said.
While Tidwell was still at Calvary Baptist, he worked with the Rev. Ken Alford, a friend of Anderson's, who served as an unpaid special assistant to Tidwell for nine months. His family was assisted financially by donations from church members and a church account. When Tidwell left, the board of deacons asked Alford to be the church's interim pastor for seven months.
Questions soon arose about Alford's past and the deacons' choice met with immediate opposition from some church members.
It turned out Alford had resigned from Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon in February 2002, after admitting to his 6,500-member congregation that he had marital problems and had committed a "one-time moral indiscretion" that he later told Calvary members was an affair.
"When Ken Alford was brought in two years ago, we didn't have a clue what was happening," said Kaplun. "They had this guy waiting in the wings. When (the deacons) finally snuck him in, the (congregation) didn't vote. He shouldn't have accepted this position because it's a position of trust. He should have known better."
Kaplun said that while the Bible may teach Christians to forgive, he doesn't trust Alford.
"I would never send my granddaughter to him for counseling," he said. "She's 16 years old and she's gorgeous. Do you think I would want to send her to a person like this?"
Don Leonard, who has been a Calvary member since 1968 and coaches the church softball team, said Alford isn't the right person to lead Calvary into its future. Alford, who is still serving as interim pastor on a month-to-month basis, did not comment for this story.
"How can you say this man can shepherd a 5,000-member church?" Leonard said. "The guy is the beneficiary of a strong set of circumstances. He was at the right place at the right time."
Leonard said he and his family have visited other Baptist churches, but have not made a split from Calvary.
"I'm not down there rattling cages," he said. "Maybe I should be. I've been numbed to it, having lived it so long. A lot of people are watching and waiting."
Kaplun said he is retaining his membership so he can still vote on the next pastor. He's angry at the church's leadership because "they should have gotten someone who is a uniter, not a divider."
"It's stubbornness," he said. "I'm blaming the deacons. They have dug their heels in. The younger generation wants to run it, and they might run it into bankruptcy."
But former senior pastor Anderson, reached by phone last week at his Grapevine, Texas, home, said, "Everybody is not against (Alford)."
"My guess is . . . I'm convinced that more people would vote for him to stay than vote for him to leave," he said. "I've got dear friends on both sides of the issue."
Dan Gildersleeve, an 18-year member who serves on the church planning committee, supports Alford. "I think the current interim pastor is doing a tremendous job," Gildersleeve said. "He's a great preacher. He's what we need right now. I spent two nights at the hospital (visiting) two people and he showed up. It would be amazing to know how many hours he spends reaching out to people at the church."
Some members put the number of people who have left the church as a result of the dispute at about 700.
When a reporter attended a 10:50 a.m. traditional Sunday worship in February, the side seating areas on the ground level were nearly empty, and there were only 20 people in the balcony.
Kaplun said that area used to be full on Sundays.
Floyd Miller, a deacon, Jim Ray, chairman of the deacon body and Skip Dvornik, an assistant pastor, said not that many members have left the church.
"Absolutely not," said Miller, who attended two meetings with the St. Petersburg Times over two months, and maintained that attendance at the church was still good. Dvornik, Miller and Ray said average attendance in the first seven weeks of 2003 was 1,522; average attendance the first seven weeks of 2004 dropped by only 170.
He said he is "there every Sunday and I don't see a measurable reduction in the attendance."
Gene Moore, chairman of the insurance committee and a member of the planning committee, attributes the drop in attendance on "the impact of changes in downtown Clearwater" and parking-related issues.
"We only have 114 parking spots," he said. "So it's important we move forward with the move out to the new property."
But some members claim the board of deacons is trying to hide the truth: that members - and their tithes - are departing the church in measurable numbers.
On Aug. 10, 2003, around the date Alford was hired, the weekly bulletin information showed a budget of $71,358.68; the take that week was $74,633.17. By Dec. 28, 2003, the church budget showed a year-to-date deficit of $560,163.15.
In January, accountants at the church started formulating the budget differently. Starting the first of the year, the weekly bulletin information now was figured on a "budget requirements projected on eight-year average." The weekly budget was now compared to "the giving trends at Calvary over the past eight years," according to the deacons.
"Historically, we took the annual budget and divided it by 52," Miller said.
The deacons said it was too simplistic, and not reflective of how the church received money. They said the administrator looked back at the actual collections on a weekly basis for eight years, and used that to better predict the actual inflow of monies.
"The bulletin reflects the unified budget, our operating budget," Miller said.
They said the amount given at Calvary is higher between Thanksgiving and Easter than during the summer months, so the new method was a more realistic way to help people understand the budget. The new accounting method looks at the last eight years to gauge how much money comes in on any given week. Miller said donations are not necessarily down, just that "we're getting more than we got in some years, less than in others."
Looking to the future
In January, Anderson sold the $335,000 house on Island Estates the church had given him and his wife Addie as a gift two years ago and moved to Grapevine, Texas, far away from Calvary Baptist.
Anderson, 68, who took a job as president of Covenant Christian Academy near his Texas home, said he left for the good of his former church.
"The reason is, I was marrying third generation people, I was baptizing third generation people," he said. "I said to myself, the new pastor doesn't have a chance. . . . I had to leave to give the new guy a chance."
Anderson did not express an opinion when Alford was named interim pastor, and says Alford "may well be a good match" for Calvary, despite earlier concerns about his actions.
"The Bible (instructs) we must forgive others for their sin. When I was on (Alford's) rehabilitation team . . . we met once a week for a year in a Tampa hotel," Anderson said. "When we came to the end of the year, our counsel was (that Alford) lead in a subsidiary role, like an associate pastor."
Anderson said he thinks Calvary has a bright future, especially with a new building on the horizon. The church's current sanctuary sits on valuable waterfront land on the bluff overlooking Clearwater Harbor in an area the city would like to develop.
The land is still for sale. Construction on the new complex, which was supposed to begin in July 2003, was delayed for seven months, but has now started.
"It is critically important that the land sell downtown," Anderson said. "When the right shepherd comes . . . after six months has passed, it will all be alright. When they gain trust in him, everything will be alright."
