How a Detroit church schism led to changed locks — and a pastor in the back of a cop car

A Detroit church has become embroiled in a schism for control over the congregation — and tensions have grown to the point of one side changing the locks and the other side's pastor being detained, reported The Detroit News.

"Police officials say they're investigating a complaint that was filed by 180 Church Pastor Lorenzo Sewell following the June 7 incident outside the church at 13660 Stansbury near Grand River," said the report. "Sewell claims officers took the side of a group called Stand With Evangel by cuffing and detaining him in the car for about a half-hour."

"Stand With Evangel member George Bogle, whose father founded Evangel Church in 1968, said an appeals court ruling last year gave his group control over the church and insists Sewell 'lost his kingdom and now refuses to leave after we fired him,'" said the report. "Sewell's attorney, Todd Perkins, on June 12 filed an emergency motion in Wayne County Circuit Court seeking a temporary restraining order. Judge Kathleen McCarthy on Saturday granted the order 'giving me my church back,' said Sewell, who held services in the facility Sunday."

Those still in the church changed the locks, forcing Sewell, in his telling, to hold sermons in other various locations, including a local methadone clinic. Then, in one of the most explosive incidents of the conflict, a confrontation occurred outside the church, leading to police detaining Sewell, who is claiming the officers aided in a "church-jacking." The police commissioner board is now looking into why Sewell was detained.

"The confrontation outside the church, a portion of which was captured by a surveillance camera mounted near the front entrance, was the culmination of a years-long fight over whether the church's decisions can be made by its members or board. The Michigan Court of Appeals last year upheld a Wayne County Circuit Court ruling that found the members had control over church matters," said the report. "'The members don't want Sewell as the pastor, so after the appeals court ruling we voted him out and served him with his termination papers — but he refuses to leave,' Bogle said. 'We went to the police before we changed the locks and showed them the documentation that we had control of the church.'"

This is not the only house of worship in crisis. A report earlier this year detailed how a North Carolina church's discussion of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol led to accusations of racism, and an exodus of non-white congregants.