Questions linger about Kinnakeet Church in Avon; Community members hope to save historic structure

By Kip Tabb and Joy Crist. This is a joint reporting project of the Outer Banks Voice and Island Free Press.

This article is Part Two in a series of stories about the Kinnakeet Church. To read Part One, click here.

For the past few weeks, the potential sale of one of Avon Village’s two churches has been a flashpoint of conversation in the local community.

Officially adopting different names and denominations over the decades – from the Avon Assembly of God to the Avon Worship Center, to the most recent Faith Life Worship Center/Heritage Church of Avon – the structure at the edge of Avon Harbor is best known as the “Kinnakeet Church” in local circles.

it’s a building that has been a fixture of the Avon Village landscape since the 1950s, which is why there has been controversy, social media pushback, and new attention to how a historic island church was listed for sale by a nonprofit connected to its pastor of roughly 20-years, Bryan Gray.

Following an outcry from members of the Avon community over the potential sale of the Heritage Church of Avon, Gray responded to criticisms of his actions.

In a statement sent to the community, he said that he was the “Longest serving pastor of the Church in Avon,” and that he had “no desire to fight those I’m called to love.”

He then apologized “to the good people of Hatteras Island and beyond who have witnessed the behavior of some who [in] the Name of Christ that have castigated, maligned, demonized, and slandered me.”

He noted in his letter that during his time as pastor of the Heritage Church of Avon, he has been an integral part of the community church for more than 20 years.

“We have counseled, preached, and taught the Word of God, led in worship, worked with the youth, dedicated and tended your babies, married your children, and buried your dead.”

Attendance at the church had been steadily declining for some time, and for the past two years, the church saw very little use, in some part due to the COVID pandemic. In Gray’s letter, he referenced that decline.

“This is a challenging time,” he wrote “Nonattendance and nonsupport have taken their toll.”

At a September 8 meeting, two days after the property was listed for sale, Avon residents who had all been members of the church at one time expressed strong agreement that the church could thrive again with new leadership and a different pastoral message.

The purpose of that meeting was to stop the potential sale of the now Heritage Church of Avon. The church was listed for sale for $1.2 million on Sept. 6, 2023, and is currently owned by Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc. according to Dare County tax records.

Former members of the church who had been sent bank records relating to church operations were concerned about some of the transactions they had seen and asked the Dare County Sheriff’s Department to look into the matter.

In his response to the community, Gray stated that his role in the matter had been thoroughly looked into, noting that, “I’ve been falsely accused and legally investigated, (and yes, vindicated)…”

According to Jeff Cruden, District Attorney (DA) for the First Prosecutorial District, “The District Attorney’s Office was made aware that an investigation had been conducted by the Dare County Sheriff’s Office into this matter. After a review of the report, to include a consultation with the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys, a determination was made that the acts committed did not rise to the level of a criminal offense, therefore, no criminal charges were warranted.”

According to Captain Kevin Duprey of the Dare County Sheriff’s Department, the county does not always ask the DA’s office to work with them on an investigation, but felt it was warranted in this case after they were asked to look into the situation.

“We received the information, and we contacted our District Attorney’s office also to look at this with us… This is a unique situation that you want to get right,” said Duprey.

Responding to written questions about his plans if the church sells, Gray wrote to reporters that he hopes to build a larger worship center in Frisco.

“One of our primary objectives is to partner with Heritage Church [of Frisco] in the construction of a new church facility located on the north side of Frisco,” he wrote, adding, “The purpose of the forefathers will be continued.”

A Sense of Betrayal

A number of Avon community members, however, say the purpose of the forefathers did not include selling either the property or moving the church.

“I was raised in the church. As a little girl, and teenager, and then my husband and I, we pastored [at the church] for a year and a half,” said Pastor Sandy McClaren of the Harvest Time Church in Asheville, N.C. “It breaks my heart about Bryan. I was raised with him.”

McClaren and her late husband Darrell were the pastors of the Avon Worship Center in 1992 and 1993. She and her husband moved to Asheville, NC, and founded Harvest Time Church. Darrell passed away in 2021, but Sandy is still the pastor of that church.

For Amy Scarborough, Avon resident and granddaughter of Alvin Price—one of the founders of the original church in the 1930s—the feeling of loss is acute.

“Whenever I was upset or needed comfort…I felt that when I went there, the peace of God was really strong in there,” she said. “All of my life I spent in that church, from the time I was a little tiny child. “

Gray, however, sees what is happening with the church and the need to consolidate the congregation in a new larger facility as part of an ongoing evolution in how people are called to worship.

“Change can be challenging,” he wrote to local reporters. “We must understand that a change in the place we worship does not mean there is a change in the God we worship. We don’t worship buildings.”

But it is the building that is at the heart of the controversy, and which is the primary concern for some of the residents of Avon.

History of Heritage Church of Avon

The Kinnakeet Church was founded by Alvin Price and Luther Hooper around 1931, according to the book The Life Saving Service on Hatteras Island—The History of the Avon Worship Center by j. Samuel Rasnake, who was a pastor at the church for a number of its early 20^th Century years.

“In 1931, Alvin Price, Luther Hooper, Sr., and 10 other men came together in Hooper’s home, praying concerning the construction of a Pentecostal church on the Outer Banks,” the author wrote.

According to Pastor McClaren, the original church was on land her grandparents owned.

“They were the ones to donate their property behind their house for the church…and I have the original deed to that,” she said. “They signed it and the church paid $1 a year, [as] my grandfather wrote on that deed. As long as the Avon Assembly of God used that land, there would be no charge. But if they ever moved, the land would go back to him.”

The church was moved in the 1950s to its current location to avoid routine flooding where it was originally located, according to several Avon residents connected to the structure.

At the September 8 community meeting, residents recalled that around the year 2000 or 2001, the church board, (at Pastor Gray’s request), voted 18 to 5 to take the church out of the Assemblies of God Denomination, which is when it became a nondenominational house of worship—the Avon Worship Center.

At that time, a nonprofit specific to the new Avon Worship Center controlled the assets of the church, including the church, an adjacent brick home, and the .81-acre lot that it occupied. As a nonprofit, Avon Worship Center was incorporated in 1993, according to NC Secretary of State records.

In 2014, Avon Worship Center changed its name to Faith Life Worship Center and, according to the filing with the Secretary of State, the agent for the renamed nonprofit was changed to Bryan Gray. The documentation does not indicate who the original agent, (or legal point of contact for the nonprofit), was.

Transfer of Assets

The real property owned by the Faith Life Worship Center nonprofit included a lot with a house on it behind the church. The house and lot were purchased in 2011 for $150,000.

In 2020, the Faith Life Worship Center nonprofit sold the lot for $145,000.

The Faith Life Worship Center nonprofit filed articles of dissolution with the Secretary of State on January 12, 2021. The terms of the dissolution stated that “All assets after making provision for the payment of any liabilities shall be distributed to Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc… recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.”

Essentially, the nonprofit that owned the church changed in 2021 from Faith Life Worship Center to Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc.

The assets included the church and church property. Financial records also indicate that the proceeds of the sale included a $20,000 check issued to Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc. on March 5, 2021, which was signed by Gray’s wife, Mary Sue. According to records on file with the NC Secretary of State, Bryan Gray Ministries was formed on Aug. 15, 2019, with Gray and his wife as its incorporators.

The check has been somewhat controversial. At the Sept. 8 meeting, the issue of the check was discussed, and there was confusion about what the check represented and the amount.

Asked about the check, Gray responded that “the $20,000 check was actually written to Bryan Gray Ministries and was part of the assets transfer from one nonprofit to another. It was not written to me.”

Renamed the Heritage Church of Avon around 2020, Gray, citing falling revenues and declining attendance, put the church property on the market on Sept. 6 of this year through his Bryan Gray Ministries nonprofit.

Due to the aforementioned 2021 transfer of the property via a deed of gift from the Faith Life Worship Center to Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc., listing the property for sale was a perfectly legal move.

But there are lingering questions as to why a dissolution of the Faith Life Worship Center nonprofit took place, with all assets transferring to Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc.

“Faith Life Worship Center was dissolved because the church congregation merged with Heritage Church,” stated Gray. “The purpose of Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc. is to fulfill our God-given mandate to touch the Nations with the love of God. This will include teaching and preaching the Gospel, training and assisting leaders, as well as demonstrating and administering God’s love at the point of human need…The stated purpose of Faith Life Worship Center was the same as Bryan Gray Ministries, Inc. is today.”

Initiatives to try to buy the Avon Church back have already been launched, including a GoFundMe page. And the main goal for many is to keep the church as a community landmark.

“We still have a lot of questions,” said GoFundMe organizer and Avon resident Jennifer Price, discussing the various transactions related to the church. “But at the end of the day, I just want the church to stay in the community.”