On December 1, 2020, Joseph Pfeiffer, a pastor of Friends Community Church of Midway City, Calif., announced on the church’s Facebook page that “Friends Community Church has to leave our home of 85 years of history.” But that the “church will survive and go on as a living and vital spiritual community in the historic Friends/Quaker tradition.”
The announcement linked to a GoFundMe page where pastor Cara Pfieffer, Joseph’s wife, wrote, “We lost our case and will be moving off the property in two phases, beginning December 31 for the church, and March 15 for the pastors’ family. We still have $8,000 in legal bills to pay off and moving expenses to cover.”
The case they lost involved a legal dispute with Evangelical Friends Church Southwest (EFCSW) over FCC Midway City’s homeless ministry. A court settlement apparently gave control of the church property and parsonage to EFCSW, but both sides are bound by a non-disclosure clause according to a December 26, 2020 post by Quaker blogger Chuck Fager on his blog A Friendly Letter.
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