Stienstra is leaving the church in Riverside where he has worked for the past 19 years this week to become the new pastor at Newport Harbor Lutheran Church. The pastor hopes he can help revive the 63-year-old Newport Beach church, which has struggled to survive in the wake of scandal and dwindling membership.
A former Newport Harbor Lutheran bookkeeper was convicted in May of stealing about $320,000 from the church coffers between 2002 and 2006.
Cheryl “Lean” (pronounced Lee-ann) Granger, pleaded guilty earlier this year to forging signatures of church board members on more than 170 checks over the course of four years.
Granger made checks out to herself and a business she and her husband owned, using the funds to pay off her credit cards.
The woman moved to New Hampshire when discrepancies in the church accounts were discovered.
“The embezzlement thing was a shock, but we got over it and now we’re going forward,” said Virginia Hawker, who has been a member of Newport Harbor Lutheran for more than 20 years.
Hawker has stayed with the church through its troubles because she loves the intimate atmosphere there, she said.
“They’re like an extended family to me,” Hawker said.
The church also has struggled to find a permanent leader for the congregation, said Newport Harbor Lutheran member Beverly Lewis.
The church has about 200 members, down significantly from the early 1990s.
“This was a very vital church in the ’60s and ’70s, but for various reasons, there was kind of a drop off in attendance over the last 10 years,” Stienstra said. “There’s probably more people that are just kind of hanging around to find out what’s going to happen and haven’t made the determination whether to leave or not.”
