Merger between old church and new divides a congregation in Miami. ‘A hostile takeover’

For decades, Evangel Church International was at the center of life for Annette Kidd and many others in the congregation. Today, half-built condominiums rise where their church stood not long ago.

On a recent Sunday, Kidd and several former members visited the site in North Miami to talk about what they lost — not just a church building but programs for their children, services in Haitian Creole, weddings and baptisms, all the rituals big and small that tie a community together.

“It’s decimating ... a congregation that was so vibrant,” Kidd said. “At one time we had 700 people.”

A 103-year-old predominantly Black congregation with deep Caribbean roots and Pentecostal traditions, ECI now exists only in their memories. Its end came after years of internal dispute. Despite a lawsuit filed by some members, the property was sold to a developer, the site rezoned and the church razed. In the process, ECI formally merged with a modernized, social media-savvy church, called COLLAB.CHURCH that holds its Sunday services in a rented school auditorium. Even the Evangel name wound up erased.

Senior pastor David Betzer, who relocated from another Assemblies of God church in Missouri to lead ECI in 2018, said both the sale of a large property with flooding problems and re-branding of the church were necessary in order for the shrinking congregation to survive.

“We didn’t come in with any plan or any agenda for the church,” Betzer said. “One of the things my wife and I have done in our ministry through the years, is we’ll go into some pretty difficult places that are bruised and broken and try and return them to health. We came in with that in mind — to restore the church.”

Some members accepted the church’s new direction as necessary change. Others, to this day, feel betrayed and abandoned.

“The whole thing is just very shady. It’s just a hostile takeover,” Kidd said.

Kidd, a member of ECI for over 25 years, held her 15th wedding anniversary vow renewal the church in 1998. She lead the charge in saving the building before it was sold more than year ago, “Change should be something that transitions and not demolishes.”

A changing religious landscape

The fate of Evangel Church International reflects the changing social, economic and religious landscape of South Florida and is only likely to become more common. As older congregations struggle to grow or even maintain membership and community demographics change, faith leaders are seeking new ways to expand their audience in order to survive. New business models are leaving behind costly cathedrals. A church’s online presence is more important than ever.

Skyrocketing real estate values in South Florida also are fueling aging churches to change, with selling or leasing portions of a church’s property becoming more common, said Matt Messier, managing director for the religious, education and non-profit practice for Foundry Commercial real estate company.

“That concept of how we gather is definitely changing,” said Messier. “What you see is the church trying to be responsive to the culture that it’s in.”

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But as the transition at ECI shows, the moves to “modernize” a church can create divisions and discontent, particularly with an aging congregation. For some former members, Collab’s worship style, which blends Christian faith with pop culture, resembles nothing close to the original ECI church.

“Collab and us are two different organizations. We don’t have anything in common with them,” Kidd said. “Their worship style, their formula, their whole culture. It’s a complete new-age type thing, that’s not our style.”

Betzer, the pastor, doesn’t deny the culture clash.

“They’re right. Different chemistry, different culture. And part of that was difficult to see get left behind,” he said. But ultimately, he believes his critics are stuck in the church’s “glory days.”

“Seasons change, times change, things move on,” he said. “There were things that were done in Miami in the 20s that aren’t being done now. And there’s a reason they’re not being done now. Because they’re not effective.”

‘Time to refresh’

After a year-long search, Betzer, who was vetted by the Assemblies of God leadership, was hired as the senior pastor of ECI in 2018. ECI’s former lead pastor, Nigel Hundy, had stepped down after leading the church for 25 years.

“When I came into the church, I said, ‘We need to start over again. Because it’s been 100 years, it’s time to refresh, renew,” Betzer said.

The church, which overlooked the Golden Glades Interchange, had a longstanding legacy in the North Miami community. It offered a host of programs for all ages — youth mentorship programs, summer camps, Bible study, choir, theater and dance teams — and was home to a tight-knit community of congregants from Jamaica, Haiti, Bahamas and Puerto Rico. The classical worship style included a traditional choir and the occasional speaking in tongues or laying of hands on someone receiving the Holy Spirit. The church with Haitian influence offered some services in Creole.

For member Marjorie Pierre, ECI was a safe place where her teenage children could go throughout the week to connect with friends.

“My kids were involved so much in the church. The kids [were] going to Bible study, at the church every day,” Pierre said. “I’ve never been to a church like that in my whole life.”

Her family had been involved in the church since 2011. After the merger took place, she said her children felt the impact.

“When the church went down, it was bad for my family. My son went into depression,” she said. “They don’t have a place to go like ECI. That hurt me so bad.”

Pierre’s 19-year-old daughter, Rubianca Louissaint, said she gave the new Collab a try after the merger, but for her, it wasn’t the same.

“I’m missing the ministry. We went to a lot of churches and danced. I created a lot of memories with my sisters at the time,” Louissaint said. “Just the community of people around my age, it was kind of stripped from us.”

But, like many other longstanding churches, ECI had its own set of problems. Leadership was unstable, long before Betzer entered the picture said long-time member turned youth pastor Nelson Beaubrun.

“There was a lot of transition going on at the same time, and honestly a lot of it wasn’t positive,” said Beaubrun, who worked at ECI and Collab until last fall.

In his role, Beaubrun lead services for teens and young adults. He also helped connect them with career training, college fairs, financial class and other opportunities. “It was very exciting, very rewarding.” he said.

Shortly after he was hired, Beaubrun said issues in church leadership led to the crumbling of a community organization called Life Impact. The church-owned nonprofit, which operated out of another building on Seventh Avenue, had been around since 1996, providing families with affordable child care, summer programs and field trips.

When Life Impact became too much of a financial strain on the church, ECI sold that building in 2017. . “It was sad because it was very impactful in the community,” he said.

Developers express interest

A little over a year after Betzer was hired, he presented the congregation with the idea of selling its property. Developers had begun expressing increasing interest in the eight acres of land the church sat on, some of which was not being used.

“Location hadn’t been part of the conversation. But once we were offered pretty significant money for that, now, that becomes a different issue,” Betzer said.

For awhile, members had talked about expanding their church, but flooding problems, aging sewer lines and other issues made that complicated. After months of discussions and meetings, the congregation ultimately approved the sale.

“Almost everybody seemed pretty receptive,” Beaubrun said. “We had dealt with so much transition that was negative, I thought that this would be a positive thing.”

The promise of a new church building was tempting to even the most skeptical members at ECI. But it was another step — the merging of two different churches — that ultimately lead to a fractured congregation.

‘People felt betrayed’

In early 2022, as the date to vacate the church grew closer, Betzer made plans to change the name of the church and merge with Collab.church.

Some ECI members were already familiar with Collab. The new church had been operating out of ECI’s buildings and under its authority since 2020. It’s a relationship the Assemblies of God fellowship calls a Parent-Affiliated Church or PAC. The process allows “church planters” — people who establish an organized body of believers in a new location — the freedom to establish their own unique church identity under the umbrella of a more mature church.

The name change and merger, congregants learned, wasn’t all. It came with a new, yet temporary, worship location, North Miami Beach Senior High School, and two new senior pastors, Miami transplants Chancellor and Jaclyn Dix. Within the same week, a long-time pastor was fired from the church.

“When it was presented on a Sunday, it wasn’t received well,” said Beaubrun, whose position was changed from youth pastor to community involvement pastor. “A lot of murmuring conversations, people talking, being pulled to the side. People felt betrayed.”

Beaubrun said he understood the reason behind many of the changes, but feels that the delivery of the news could have been handled better by Betzer, a relative newcomer to the church and the community it served.

“You were hired three years ago. There’s cultural things that you may not understand about the church. That’s why you have a team around you to advise you, because this may go left,” Beaubrun said. “And that’s what happened.”

The merger brought on a litany of complaints from former members who opposed the decisions. Some say Betzer promised the church one thing and delivered another. Others say he did not make himself available to speak openly with critics of the move.

Betzer says he didn’t expect everyone to embrace the new direction, “There are some strong personalities among some of the folks in this region, and when they don’t get their way they’re not happy. I understand it, change is difficult for people,” he said.

In June of 2022, Kidd and four other members filed a lawsuit against Betzer and ECI’s board members to try and stop the sale of the church. The lawsuit went on for over 12 months months and was later withdrawn. Church members who supported the suit said they needed to find more funds to continue a legal fight.

In July 2022, ECI sold the church and surrounding property on 590 N.W. 159th Street for $8.29 million to developer Golden Glades Owner LLC, an affiliate of the Houston-based Morgan Group. The church then purchased a new building, located at 975 North Miami Beach Blvd. for $5.60 million in March 2023, according to Miami-Dade County property records.

They use the newly purchased office building on North Miami Beach Blvd, which they call “Collab headquarters,” for smaller midweek events. The bottom floor is being rented out to an insurance agency for additional income. The church now rents space from North Dade Middle School in Miami Gardens for its Sunday services.

“That’s part of a fresh vision,” said Betzer. “Rather than be a church that people meet in a few hours a week, and it sits idle the rest of the time ... now we have money that bought a building that can also bring in some income, now we can help a school clean up its courtyard ... or participate with Miami Rescue Mission.”

Collab’s lead pastor, Chancellor Dix, said operating without a large building is an intentional decision that’s becoming more popular.

“This methodology, this is where a lot of churches are going,” said Dix.

The similar and more popular VOUS church, for example, lead by Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr. who was made famous for officiating the wedding of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, started out of a repurposed Wynwood school auditorium in 2015. Their Little Haiti location still meets at iTech, Miami’s Mega Technology Magnet High School.

“The church is not a building. The church isn’t just pastors. The church is people,” said Dix. “Jesus himself told us multiple times ‘quit looking at the building, quit looking at things, look at people.’”

‘The community you’ve been looking for’

Collab — short for collaboration — is young, upbeat and oozing with positivity. There is bold branding (think capitalized words in all black on their in-person and online signage). The uplifting slogans (“The community you’ve been looking for”) aim to draw people of all walks of life.

At a recent service, a band of six young musicians kicked off the morning with a Christian power ballad, the Hillsong Worship classic, “What a beautiful name.” After 20 minutes of musical praise, Pastor Chancellor Dix sauntered on stage sporting a stylish dark denim jacket, almost like a rock star making his way to the spotlight. At other events, he added a Bass Pro Shops trucker cap to the ensemble.

One of the lead singers, Pastor Gary Smith, shed tears as he belted the line “Death could not hold you, the veil tore before you.” He stretched his arms towards the heavens. Worshipers mirrored the emotion, swaying side-to-side, closing their eyes and occasionally calling out: “Yes!” “Glory to God!” “My King!”

After the emotionally intense start, the rest of service felt conversational, friendly, as the pastors drove home multiple messages over the next hour and a half.

The pastors were careful not to linger too long in the tedium of Biblical history, instead deploying humor and everyday references — who hasn’t had sinful thoughts while driving in Miami traffic? One recent sermon titled “How to get what YOU want” blended the theme of New Year’s resolutions with the power of Jesus Christ. A recent post to their social media offered “5 Bible verses for when you’re dealing with anxiety.”

Milly Guillaume, who was a member of ECI before the merger and a current member of Collab, said she likes the new model of worship. But at first, the twenty-four year-old wasn’t sure about the all the changes.

“It was just new to all of us. So it took some warming up to,” Guillaume said. “I prayed and asked God, ‘is this for me?’ And he confirmed it. This is for me. This is where I need to grow.”

Guillaume who’s Haitian, grew up going to a Pentecostal church, where her parents still attend. She said the culture of her old church could sometimes feel too strict for her taste. She likes that Collab doesn’t demand perfection.

“Collab’s culture is just so positive. It’s uplifting,” she said. “This isn’t some place where you have to be so holy and sanctified where you got to make sure you walk correct. No, we’re here to take you in as you are.”

As someone who was around before and after the merger, former pastor Beaubrun agrees that change was needed. “The writing on the wall for the church .... was there way before Pastor David,” he said. But he also understands that leaving the past behind was simply too painful for some members.

“People are still hurt,” he said. “a lot of friendships were damaged and or destroyed as a part of the disagreement. They feel like they lost a part of themselves.”

This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.