A DuPage County judge has ordered the return of church property, a parsonage and a bank account held by Naperville Korean Church to the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church while the parties engage in a legal battle for the disputed assets. A Korean Methodist church in Naperville has been stripped of its property and bank account while it engages in a legal battle for the assets with the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church.
For months, however, those properties have been a point of contention between NKC and the conference, with the latter arguing the congregation could either pay for them or return them. The properties, according to the conference, are held in trust for the larger denomination.When repeated requests from the conference failed to be addressed, the conference in October filed a complaint against NKC in DuPage County Circuit Court. The matter has been in litigation since.
A vast majority were conservative-leaning churches, responding to what they saw as the United Methodists’ failure to enforce their own rules.The issue for NKC was primarily that of LGBTQ+ clergy, according to Angela Im, the attorney who represents the congregation in its dispute with the Northern Illinois Conference.
It was a “sanctuary, especially for congregants that came from an immigrant background seeking a sense of familiarity,” Im added. To that end, NKC is fighting for community as much as it is for property in its conference dispute, she said.Requirements of the UMC’s temporary disaffiliation process were enumerated in an addendum to its Book of Discipline, which dictates church law and doctrine.
In May 2023, the conference sent representatives to NKC to assume control of assets. But upon arrival, representatives were denied access to properties and ultimately left, the complaint said. That left NKC in unlawful possession of the properties, according to the suit.“There was a group of people, myself included, who were out there, who asked them to please leave,” she said.
In turn, all written legal documents for properties held by local churches include a trust clause — including the deeds that conveyed property to NKC, court filings show. The implication of that clause, according to the UMC, is that if a congregation chooses to or can no longer function as part of the UMC, it forfeits all property ownership rights.