New Hope Revival Temple Ministries at 172 Catherine Street. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
One Sunday last month, Pastor Randolph McNeil began his weekly video sermon on his Facebook page addressing the faithful “from Mount Zion Church in Red Bank, New Jersey.”
Not exactly.
Mount Zion, with McNeil’s wife June N. McNeil signing as trustee, sold the Catherine Street property that had been its home for seven decades last May for $977,000.
In a year when Red Bank’s west side real estate market saw its first million-dollar home sale, it was another sign of real estate values soaring heavenward.
It’s a story, too, of a decades-old congregation dwindling under a pastor barred from his weekday career as a financial advisor. And another congregation’s joy at finding a new home after they had been cast into the New Jersey real estate wilderness by a property dispute that locked them out of their longtime house of worship.
In May, Mt. Zion House of Prayer, which had occupied the historic address at 172 Catherine Street since 1952, sold the 27-year-old church building and the adjacent parking lot on Tilton Avenue to a South Plainfield congregation, New Hope Revival Temple Ministries for $977,100, according to Monmouth County property records.
As reported in redbankgreen, the property had earlier been under contract to sell to the social service provider Lunch Break, which had plans to construct transitional housing on the site.
That purchase fell through, Lunch Break Executive Director Gwendolyn Love said, because of the projected costs of purchasing and converting the property and the possibility of a more suitable site on the former Fort Monmouth tract.
And so, over the summer, a church where attendance had dwindled in recent years was once again filled with the sounds of music and praise as worshippers with New Hope Revival filled the pews every Sunday. It’s been a joyful turn for the faithful who had been locked out of their longtime South Plainfield home in a dispute involving the estate of their former pastor, who passed away.
“Got blessed us with this,” New Hope Revival First Lady Lisa Parker told redbankgreen during a visit late last month.
Meanwhile, the pastor of Mt. Zion House of Prayer, Randolph P. McNeil, says the church is taking the proceeds from the sale to find a new home somewhere else.
For now, that somewhere else appears to be Facebook, where he delivers sermons from his desk each week via video.
“We’re virtual right now,” he told redbankgreen. “We’re still a church, we’re still in our communities, we’re still doing our thing.”
One former Mount Zion church member said congregants are seeking more transparency over what will happen with the equity created by generations of church members’ tithes. By law, money from the sale of a church or nonprofit must go to charity or church purposes.
Asked to elaborate on the future of Mount Zion and the plans for the proceeds, McNeil replied: “It’s not your business.”
“Do you go to our church?” he asked a reporter. “Do you pay tithes to our church?” “It’s a church account, it’s a church business. It’s not your business. We’re not in Red Bank anymore.”
A photo of the original chapel on the site from “Red Bank Vol. 3” by Randal Gabrielan.
The church property, which is included in the borough’s historic addresses inventory, has been used for religious purposes for generations.
In 1891, Mrs. E.M. Durham, “a prominent member of Trinity Episcopal Church,” built a chapel there as a memorial to her son, Thomas Knight Durham, a church organist who died while canoeing in the North Shrewsbury River the year before, according to the Red Bank Register.
In 1907, “a group of local Black Episcopalians successfully petitioned Bishop Scarborough to use the vacant chapel for worship services that they had previously been holding in one another’s homes,” according to the website of what’s now St. Thomas Episcopal Church.
Mrs. Durham deeded the property, debt-free, to the new congregation a year later, according to local historian Randall Gabrielan.
Mt. Zion House of Prayer took over the property in 1952, one year after St. Thomas moved to its present location at East Sunset Avenue and Bridge Avenue. The 1891 chapel was demolished and replaced with the present structure in 1998, borough records show. Dr. Virginia Wright-Goode served as pastor of Mt. Zion from 1952 until she died in 2006.
In 2007, McNeill, who records show was working as a registered financial advisor at Merril Lynch in East Brunswick, took over as pastor at Mt. Zion, according to the church’s website. By 2015 he had moved on to Buckman Buckman & Reid in Little Silver.
McNeil was expelled by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities on June 10, 2020, according to postings on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority website.
According to the June 10, 2020 bureau revocation order, FINRA requested documents related to 23 transactions conducted by McNeil while he was at the Little Silver firm for possible securities industries violations. He failed to respond to the requests and was barred from the industry. He declined to comment when asked about the case.
Chip Buckman, a principal in Buckman Buckman & Reid, said the investigation centered on transactions that occurred before McNeil joined the Little Silver firm. McNeil resigned when his license was suspended and was never accused of any wrongdoing, Buckman said.
At the time, Mt. Zion church was also closed to services due to COVID-19, exacerbating what two people familiar with the church called several years of dropping attendance.
The church was put up for sale in early 2023, with Lunch Break initially entering a contract for the asking price of $977,100, then backing out.
For New Hope Revival, Lunch Break’s change of heart was the answer to six years of prayers.
The church had been without a permanent home since the pastor of their longtime home in South Plainfield, Rescue House of Prayer, died in 2018. It was only after her death that trustees and the new pastor, Rev. Keith D. Parker, learned the property was still in her family’s name and had never been legally transferred to the church.
Rev. Parker (photo below) said he arrived at the church where he had preached and worshipped for 50 years to “No Trespassing” signs and threats from the family that they’d call the police if he went inside.
“The family said it was their church and they put us out,” said treasurer and Deacon Nathan Hollis.
A search for a suitable place took them to industrial properties amid a disheartening hunt across New Jersey’s pricey real estate offerings. Until last January, when a realtor showed them the little old church for sale on Catherine Street.
“We said, ‘This is it,” Parker recalled.
New Hope Revival Temple Ministries closed on the property on May 30, with McNeil’s wife June N. McNeil signing as the trustee for the seller, the nonprofit corporation Mount Zion House of Prayer, according to a deed recorded with the County of Monmouth.
They just closed the sale in time. A day after signing the contract, Parker said a developer who had just built two houses on Catherine Street approached McNeil with a cash offer above the $977,100 asking price.
And so, two Sundays ago, Parker preached from the pulpit, music rang out down Catherine Street and church members talked excitedly about community events planned for the spring and a possible food pantry on the site.
“We’re not here just to be here,” Pastor Parker said. “We’re here to work in this community.”
At the same time, Pastor McNeill was live on Facebook delivering a sermon from his desk.
“We bring you greetings,” he said, “from the Mount Zion Church in Red Bank, New Jersey. “
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your level of monthly or annual contribution.
