2016 Wesleyan Discipline:Property, Local Church: Ownership

4680. Local property within an established district may be held by the local church or by the district, as decided upon by the district conference (cf. 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:1180:21–22). In those districts where the local churches are to hold their own property, all grants, conveyances, devises, gifts, transfers, and assignments now owned or hereafter acquired of any property, real, personal or mixed, to or for any unincorporated local church or any organization, board or similar body connected thereto, shall be held by and/or conveyed to its duly elected board of trustees, and to their successors in office and their assigns, as the board of trustees of such local church, in trust for the benefit and use of the members and ministers of The Wesleyan Church, subject to its Discipline, regulations and appointments as from time to time legislated and declared and shall contain the appropriate trust clause as set forth in 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4610 (cf. 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4590; 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4620). An omission of the name of any or all of the trustees shall not render any instrument invalid. (The regulations for an incorporated local church are set forth in 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4000–4070.) In those districts where the district is to hold local property (cf. 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:323:8), such local property shall be held as set forth in 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4140 or 2016 Wesleyan Discipline:4830.