BRENTWOOD, TN — A routine audit at Redeemer Community Fellowship has confirmed that the church has been depositing its weekly offering into a dormant building fund account since 2015, accumulating $214,000 that no active committee has authority to spend.

The discrepancy was discovered by incoming treasurer Gary Feltner, 61, during his first month on the job after predecessor Dolores Wakham retired in December following 22 years of service. Feltner described the moment of discovery as “spiritually clarifying.”

“The money is absolutely there,” Feltner told the finance committee. “We are rich. We just can’t touch it until somebody figures out what the building fund was originally for, which nobody can, because Dolores is in Tucson.”

The building fund was opened in 2004 to finance a proposed fellowship hall expansion that was tabled in 2009 and never formally closed. According to church records, the account requires a two-thirds congregational vote to reallocate, a quorum the church has not achieved at a business meeting since 2017.

“We have enough money to fix the parking lot, replace the HVAC, and fully fund the youth ministry for three years. We simply cannot access any of it at this time.”

Senior Pastor Dale Ostrander, 54, confirmed that Dolores Wakham has been contacted in Tucson. She reportedly remembered the account but believed the deposits had stopped when the expansion was tabled. She is “not sure” what she thought was happening to the weekly deposits after that.

The finance committee has formed a subcommittee to determine how to call a business meeting with sufficient notice to achieve quorum. The subcommittee meets quarterly.

At press time, the coffee maker in the fellowship hall had stopped working for the third time this year.