Park Street Church voted to affirm senior minister Mark Booker on Sunday by a vote of 350 to 173, with 20 abstaining.
The distinguished evangelical church in Boston has been roiled by controversy as ministers, elders, staff, and lay leaders disagreed over a series of choices—in addition to the strategy of making decisions—on the 220-year-old congregationalist church. Ultimately the complete congregation was thrown into the dispute. The conflict became public when a bunch of greater than 75 members petitioned for a special meeting to review the firing of an associate minister who said he had “serious concerns” about Booker’s spiritual leadership, citing “patterns at variance with the biblical qualifications.”
The conflict raised questions on checks and balances and the sturdiness of congregationalism amid escalating disagreements about leadership. Congregationalism is the popular polity of many evangelicals, including those in Baptist, nondenominational, and Stone-Campbell churches.
Park Street’s repeatedly scheduled congregational meeting on Sunday was forged as a referendum on the leadership of the church. Critics proposed a set of amendments to the bylaws that they said would add much-needed limits on church leaders’ power and nominated another slate of elder candidates.
Booker, who was called to steer the church in 2020, proposed a nonbinding vote to affirm his continued leadership at Park Street. The elders approved the ballot measure, adding it to the agenda, as CT reported last week.
“It is evident there was a break of trust on the elder, minister, and staff level,” Booker told the congregation in the course of the fractious six-hour meeting on Sunday. “This break of trust among the many leaders of this church has spilled over into the congregation as well, causing deep pain for all of us, and all of us bear it in a technique or one other. The Christianity Today article revealed these breaks to a wider audience. And I understand that that is and has been unsettling for our community.”
Booker characterised CT’s reporting on the division on the church as an “oversimplified binary picture” and called it disappointing.
Twenty-one staff members also wrote an email saying they were frustrated with CT’s reporting and “upset with the best way it characterizes our church.”
In his annual meeting speech, Booker said he and lots of others bore responsibility for the “fences” that had broken down in his community. But he asked the congregation to affirm his calling as senior minister despite his mistakes.
“The query I feel might be before you in a number of minutes is whether or not you prefer to for me to grow as I shepherd amongst you,” Booker said.
Booker’s wife, Mandy Booker, was given a number of minutes to talk in defense of her husband’s character. She said the allegations against him “paint an impressionistic picture” of “an insensitive and power-hungry man” but are based “almost entirely on imputations of motives and disagreements about leadership decisions.”
Those who know Booker best, she said, know this depiction is incorrect.
“Mark is a pastor, through and thru,” she told the congregation. “He lives and breathes Jesus.”
Other Park Street leaders also spoke up on the meeting to take responsibility for the division that has threatened to separate the church. Elder Leslie Liu said that a number of weeks ago she read Amos 6:12, which says “you will have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness,” and wept for Park Street.
“This is what I see in our church, bitterness and poison, where there must have been righteousness and justice,” Liu said. “Our congregation is split. Small groups are divided. Committees are divided. Staff are divided. And I don’t think I would like to let you know the board has been divided for a while now. You can tell by what you’re seeing here. When you see signs of sickness on the surface of the fruit, you recognize something’s not good on the within.”
Liu said that after three or 4 other complaints about Booker, the elders must have asked for an independent investigation into whether he had misused his spiritual authority. She asked the congregation, nonetheless, to show to God on this time of crisis.
“Have you ever been sick but you didn’t actually know what was the reason for you sick?” Liu said. “We know that we’re sinners, but now we’re seeing it out within the open. Let’s go to the master physician for the surgery that we want.”
The prolonged meeting was contentious and sometimes chaotic. People shouted on the moderator to permit members roughly time and leeway to talk. There were conflicts over parliamentary procedure and the right solution to count standing votes.
One member objected to the nonbinding vote, calling it “meaningless,” citing a guide to parliamentary procedure.
“If we would like to take a vote, we are able to take a vote,” Karolyn Park said, “but let or not it’s binding, because we’re the congregation with final human authority. We deserve our voices to be heard.”
The congregation voted by paper ballot, passing their votes down the rows to put in a set basket.
When the ballots were counted and the outcomes announced—67 percent for Booker, 33 percent opposed—the church was silent, apart from the shifting of a number of bodies and the shuffling of a number of feet.
The affirmed senior minister said that nobody took joy within the result and that moving forward would require “plenty of grace.” He asked the congregation to commit themselves, in the approaching months and years, to the work of repair. He promised he could be a shepherd to the entire church, even those that voted against him.
“I’ve had the sense for a while that we—the staff, the elders, and the congregation—are on the cusp of God’s deeper work,” Booker said. “We cannot do that as we fight one another. We can do that as we heal together.”
Not everyone was satisfied with the result. Michael Balboni, the previous associate minister who brought charges against Booker, accused the leadership of selecting power over love.
“The 60 or 65 percent who’ve won today, you haven’t won. You haven’t won. Because love has not won, and when love is overcome by power, all of us lose and Jesus is defamed and our church has reproach upon us,” Balboni said on the meeting. “We’re all going home having been proven broken.”
Some within the congregation complained that Balboni was off topic and asked the moderator to stop him, while others shouted, “Let him speak!”
The former minister said the glory of God had departed from the congregation, referencing 1 Samuel 4:21. Nevertheless, he said, the conflict will not be over.
“This is my last word. I is not going to quit. And I is not going to give in. Until there’s a good process that hears what has happened to me, what has happened to other ministers, I is not going to stop,” Balboni said.
The Park Street clerk has approved a petition to call a special meeting in April to review the elder’s decisions to dismiss the costs Balboni brought against Booker.
On Sunday, nonetheless, the congregation affirmed Booker and elected the five officers and 6 elders chosen by the nominating committee. The alternative slate of candidates put up by petition all lost. The congregation also rejected all five proposed amendments to the bylaws.
Some Park Street members who spoke to CT after the meeting said the meeting was disheartening and so they wished there had never been a vote on Booker’s leadership.
“I personally feel it was unlucky that that vote took place. It drew a line within the sand,” said Victor Sheen, who has been a member for greater than 20 years. “He doesn’t have the mandate, regardless that he has the bulk. But I’m hopeful there will be healing.”
Others said they were glad the congregation got the prospect to vote and Booker was affirmed. They consider it should help the congregation give you the option to place all of this controversy behind them soon.
“The congregation affirmed their belief that Mark will proceed the work of reconciliation and repair,” said Elizabeth Lohnes, the church’s former director of communications, in an email to CT. “I’m desirous to see a move towards a thriving work environment for everybody.”
One member who joined in 2022 said he was impressed by Booker’s leadership in the course of the sometimes painful meeting.
Booker “did his part in leading the entire congregation in a posture of affection and style,” Hanno van der Bijl said in an email. “He listened well as he sought to bring everyone together. He is a broken and sinful person like the remainder of us, and he acknowledged and apologized for his mistakes.”
Members hope the affirmation vote can mark the start of a recent chapter for the historic evangelical church.
“While really difficult, allowing space within the meeting for either side to be heard was a vital step in resolving conflict and moving forward as a congregation united in our love for Jesus,” wrote Laurel Sweeney, who also joined the church in 2022. “I’ve greatly appreciated and benefited from Mark’s gifted preaching. I’m thankful that nearly all of the congregation affirmed his leadership and that we are able to begin a strategy of healing.”
