One of Miami’s oldest Black churches faces financial cliff due to loans by ex-pastor

Before Bishop James D. Adams signed his name to two mortgages on the church totaling nearly $2.5 million, St. John Institutional Missionary Baptist Church in Overtown — one of the oldest Black churches in Miami — was in good financial standing.

But after months and months of missed payments and a shake-up of church leadership, St. John’s is now facing foreclosure on three of its properties that were pledged as collateral against the loans.

St John’s, which has roots going back to 1906, 10 years after the city of Miami was founded, has until Aug. 14 to pay back the lender or congregants will lose their fellowship hall, which houses the Sunday School classrooms and where services are held while the church undergoes renovations. Two other church buildings and their parking lots also are affected. The historic church building at 1328 NW Third Ave. is not impacted.

Much of the money went to buying a swanky downtown riverfront condo that Adams’ lawyer says was meant to be his parsonage, or church house. Adams moved in shortly after he signed for an $845,000 mortgage in the church’s name in 2017. Church leaders say they knew nothing about the mortgage at the time.

“The church and everybody I have interviewed who’s a member and affiliated with the church says, ‘We never had a congregation meeting on that,’” said Marva Wiley, an attorney for St John’s.

Wiley was referring to two balloon mortgages taken out in the church’s name and signed by Adams — the $845,000 one in 2017 and another for $1.6 million in 2018, according to Miami-Dade County mortgage records.

The church has since sold the condo, using the proceeds to pay off the $845,000 mortgage and back condo fees. But it’s still on the hook for the $1.6 million mortgage, which has mushroomed to about $2.5 million after accrued unpaid interest, taxes and fees, according to Wiley.

Adams, 62, who was elected senior pastor in 2010, was fired by the church in 2021. Adams did not answer questions directly from the Herald; he responded through his attorney.

Adams’ attorney, Robert Harris, contends the congregation knew about the mortgages and that the church needed a new roof, new windows as well as funds to pay new staff and musicians for Sunday services.

“They didn’t have any money. The only thing that they had were assets,” Harris said in an interview with the Herald. “We took out a loan on the assets to pay the bill. Everyone agreed to it.”

City of Miami building records show the church applied for roof and window permits. But, the total cost of the estimated repairs was well below $1.6 million — around $35,000 for the roof and $33,000 for the window and door repairs, according to the city’s building permit portal iBuild.

“There may have been financial issues, but they were of his making,” Wiley said, adding the former pastor signed off on other balloon mortgages prior to the $1.6 million one now in default.

“There’s a series of loans that basically swelled into a financial problem that underscores poor fiscal management that he was responsible for,” she said. “He made the decisions that created this set of problems.”

‘This is my life’

For many congregants, St. John’s is not just a church, but a tapestry woven across generations. Babies are baptized at St. John’s. Couples get married at St. John’s. People lay their loved ones to rest at St. John’s.

As Deaconess Cecily Robinson-Duffie stood in the doorway of the pale yellow-brick cathedral on a recent July morning, she recalled her wedding day in 1985.

“My limo was right there, and I came up these stairs and stood here,” said Robinson-Duffie, 58, gesturing to the front entrance hallway, now sprinkled in sawdust due to renovations. Her family has been with the church for five generations.

“Both of my parents got married here. My father’s parents got married in 1915,” Robinson-Duffie said, noting they were married in the smaller church that existed a few blocks away. Today’s church, marked by an Art Deco facade and two-story stained glass windows, was built in 1940 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

As she stood in the balcony overlooking the church, deep into renovations, Robinson-Duffie recalled her childhood in the church.

“This is my life,” she said.

The prospect of foreclosure has pierced the heart of the congregation, some of whose members go back more than 50 years.

“It’s shocking right to this day,” said former daycare director Berdine Smith, who started teaching at the daycare in 1963 when she was in her early 30s. “When I think about it, tears come in my eyes.”

For Andre Uptgrow Tate, 33, who grew up in the church, it’s hard to imagine St. John’s in financial peril: “The current situation that we’re in, it’s really hard to swallow.”

Tate, who went from being baptized at St. John’s to a board trustee, recalls how the church thrived when he was younger. He remembers toy drives, Christmas plays, food and clothing collections for the homeless.

“It was everything a church should be,” he said.

New pastor, new changes

But in 2010, things started to change. After a lengthy search, the congregation elected a new senior pastor, Adams. The former pastor, Rev. Henry Nevin, retired in 2008 after more than 20 years, his tenure marked by creating the St. John Community Development Corp., a nonprofit that builds affordable housing in Overtown.

Around 2014, major renovations began on the historic cathedral and the congregation moved to a temporary location at nearby Booker T. Washington Senior High. They then moved the services to the fellowship hall, where they now meet on Sunday morning.

“As we got our new pastor, I think he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” Tate said. “And we started losing a lot of members.”

A congregation of over 400 dwindled to about 70 members, he noted.

Before Adams joined the church in 2010, St. John’s was free of any debt on the church and the three other buildings it owns.

“From what I understand, the church was in a debt-free posture when James Adams became the pastor,” said Wiley.

But that changed on April 21, 2017, when Adams, as president of St. John Institutional Missionary Baptist Church, signed for the $845,000 balloon mortgage in the church’s name. The lender was Taylor Made Lending, LLC, based in Fort Lauderdale, according to county mortgage records. Smith, the former childcare director, signed as a witness on the mortgage.

“I don’t remember signing anything like that. I don’t remember. I really don’t,” Smith, 92, said Thursday.

Nine months later, on Jan. 12, 2018, Adams signed for another mortgage in the church’s name, also from Taylor Made Lending, according to county records. This mortgage: $1.6 million.

The ex-pastor, through his attorney, contends the money was needed for roof and window renovations, as well as to pay newly hired employees. The city of Miami issued a $35,000 roofing permit to the church in March 2017, according to city records, which indicate inspections of the new roof were completed in May of that year.

“The plan was to sell adjacent properties that the church owned to satisfy the loan,” Harris said. “They needed that $1.6 million quickly. And so that’s how they decided to get it.”

Wiley, who has been taking a closer look at the church’s financial situation, doesn’t understand the decision behind signing off on two balloon mortgages, which typically have low or no monthly payments before the borrower has to pay off the entire mortgage, usually in five or seven years.

“The population of the church was not sufficient to support this kind of debt,” Wiley said. “Generally, the only money that can be called income is the tithe, and if the population of the church, dies off, aged out, leaves the church, then the income goes down. But the expenses that he was generating did not go down. They went up.”

Buying a condo, series of mortgages

Much of the money went to buying a million-dollar condominium at the Mint, 92 SW Third St., which is advertised as “a true find in Miami River district, with a range of world amenities, modern finishes and amazing views of the river.”

Adams, in the church’s name, bought the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom condo in May 2017 for $1.3 million, according to Miami-Dade property records, shortly after the $845,000 mortgage went through.

A few months earlier, on Feb. 28, 2017, Adams took out another balloon mortgage in the church’s name for $975,000, county records show. This time the lender was Yale Mortgage Funding, LLC, a Miami Beach firm. Carla Jordan, a representative of Florida Title & Escrow Professionals in Miami Beach, witnessed the transaction, records show.

The $975,000 mortgage was paid back on April 21, 2017 — the same day Adams took out the $845,000 mortgage, county records show.

A month later — on May 17, 2017 — Adams took out a new balloon mortgage in the church’s name with Yale Mortgage. This time for $400,000. Five months later — on Oct. 3, 2017 — Adams took out a second mortgage in the church’s name with Yale. This time for $300,000.

Both of these loans were paid off in full on Jan. 18, 2018, county records show, six days after Adams got the $1.6 million mortgage from Taylor Made Lending, effective Jan. 12, 2018

“He’s paying it back with more loans, “ said Wiley, the church’s attorney. “He essentially is consuming the equity that the church has built up and all of its assets.”

Adams admitted to buying the condo in an interview with Channel 10, which reported on the potential foreclosure last month. He says, through his attorney, that it served as his parsonage.

“When he first came on board, 10 years before, the parties agreed that they would provide him with a house to live in,” Harris said. “They got it at a sweetheart deal.”

At the time of Adams’ firing in 2021, he was still living in the condo. Since then, St. John’s sold the condo for just under $1.5 million in October 2022, according to Miami-Dade property records. At the time of the sale, the mortgage was in default., according to court records.

The church used the proceeds from the sale to pay off the $845,000 mortgage and pay delinquent condo fees, Wiley said.

“There was a small amount of money left from that after everyone got paid,” Wiley said.

Adams’ lawyer said the former pastor turned to the former board before buying the condo. “Bishop Adams had to get the approval of the board members to make that decision. He obtained that approval,” Harris said.

But current board members say they and the congregation were not aware of the condo purchase, and that an official vote would have had to to be taken by the entire church, as per the church bylaws.

“That does not exist in the record anywhere,” Wiley said. “Everybody had that same responsibility to honor the bylaws. Nobody had any authority to do anything that wasn’t approved by the church.”

St. John’s bylaws stipulate the board of directors does not have the power to “purchase, mortgage, lease or transfer any real estate without specific vote and ratification of the church.”

Mortgage payments stop; interest, taxes accrue

The church made mortgage payments until September 2021, according to Taylor Made Lending. This is around the time the congregation learned of the mortgages, elected a new board and got rid of Adams, who is suing the church, alleging breach of contract and wrongful termination. He is seeking $1 million in back pay.

Harris says the initial payments validate his contention the church was aware of the mortgage.

“They paid them those bills on a monthly basis,” Harris said. “That’s an acknowledgment, I would think, that the church knew about the loan.”

Wiley disagrees.

“The board is not the congregation,” she said. “Inform versus approve is very different. Inform is, ‘I just have to tell you what’s going on.’ Approve is a formally called meeting in which people vote.”

Compounding the church’s financial issues: Adams and some members of the previous church board transferred the condo ownership from the church to an LLC called SJ Acquisitions & Development in March 2018, according to county records. The LLC meant the church lost its exemption from paying property taxes. Taylor Made Lending picked up the tab, adding to the $1.6 million the church owed.

“They haven’t paid their real estate taxes for three years, and we have paid their real estate taxes, which is over $250,000,” Jarrod Markofsky, a manager at Taylor Made Lending, told the Herald.

The property taxes, plus accrued interest, means the church now owes more than $2.5 million on that $1.6 million mortgage, Wiley said. It’s why Taylor Made Lending has filed a foreclosure suit.

Overtown outreach could be affected

St. John’s is now calling on the community for financial help through fundraising efforts such as a Gofundme page, and a Givelify website. The church has raised almost $13,000 through Gofundme alone.

“The members are still hanging on and trusting that God will bring us out of this,” said St. John board president Darryl Spence. “We’re gonna make it through this.”

Despite the potential foreclosure, congregants show up on Sunday mornings, smiling and ready to worship. On a recent Sunday morning service, ushers passed out candy and church bulletins. Congregants chatted over coffee and snacks before and after church.

“We want them to still feel comfortable coming down to the church by keeping the doors open and keeping the grass cut,” Spence said. “Like they’re coming home.”

Many of the church’s outreach services, including the clothing drive, a food pantry that distributes food to the Overtown community, and daycare, operate out of the buildings affected by the foreclosure suit.

“It’s not just the church membership, which is impacted, but it’s the community that we serve,” Robinson-Duffie said. “We’ve tried, through our 117 years of existence, to be a holistic ministry that addresses all of the needs of people, not just their spiritual needs.”

St. John’s impact

Many of St. John’s members continue their allegiance even after they’ve moved away from Miami. Rev. JJ Flag credits his accomplishments, including his ministerial career and passion for social justice, to St. John’s.

“I would not be where I am today if it were not for that church. That is not an exaggeration,” said Flag, an associate minister for pastoral care and justice at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I do believe that I’m a better human being, and that the world is a better place because of St. John’s presence in it. I don’t think that I would be as involved in social justice and as aware of what was going on in the world, if it were not for St. John’s.”

Even the church itself is noteworthy, designed by the first major Black architecture firm in the United States, McKissack & McKissack.

“It gave us something to be proud of,” Flag said. “To be able to go into the church and say, ‘This was ours.’”

Tate, the trustee who’s been a St. John’s member for over 26 years, leaned on St. John’s during a tough time in his life. He lost his younger brother at 16 to brain cancer, leaving him adrift for over three years, a period when he stopped going to church.

It was Robinson-Duffie, whom he lovingly calls “Mother Duffie,” who noticed his absence and encouraged him to return. He began attending church again and received the Nelson Adams scholarship for two years in a row, helping him finish his four-year degree at Lindenwood University in Missouri. Today, he works as a Navy recruiter.

“A lot of my memories from St. John’s I hold near and dear, because of my relationship with my brother,” he noted.

Former childcare director Smith traveled to Miami in 1963 looking for a fresh start after escaping an abusive marriage in Tennessee. Finding St. John’s as a young single mother in a new city gave her a spiritual community, friends and a career.

One day after church, the Rev. Thedford Johnson offered Smith a job teaching at the daycare center. She accepted, making $30 a week. Eventually, she became the director.

“Those children changed my life,”said Smith, who worked 55 years at the daycare center. “This place means so much to me because it has given me the ability to do things.”

Smith has seen how St. John’s has helped the Overtown community, including offering meals and showers to the neighborhood homeless population. She remembers political breakfasts where those running for office — Maurice Ferré, Xavier Suarez, Arthur Teele, Frederica Wilson, among others — would mingle with congregants.

And although she feels betrayed by the former pastor’s actions, she leaves that matter to God.

“If you’re working for the Lord, you should want to do the right thing,” Smith said. “We have to forgive.”

This report was created with philanthropic support from Christian, Muslim and Jewish funders in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all work.