Easter service to be the last for historic Wichita church

Churches throughout Kansas will host special Easter services on Sunday. That includes Wichita’s Grace United Methodist Church.

But this Easter Sunday is bittersweet for the congregation.

While its members rejoice in the miracle of Easter, they also will say goodbye to their church. After 129 years of service, Grace United Methodist, 944 S. Topeka, will close Sunday because of declining attendance.

“We were running out of money and didn’t see … (a) way to keep going,” said the Rev. Guy Rendoff.

“You have death always in life.”

It’s a fate suffered by other churches in the city’s core.

“Some of the mainstream churches have been hemorrhaging badly for the last 50 years,” said Robert Linder, a professor of history at Kansas State University whose specialty is the study of religion. “They haven’t recruited any new members.”

Loren Winders certainly isn’t a new member at Grace United Methodist. He joined in 1932.

Growing up, he played basketball at the church, joining its basketball league, and regularly attended Sunday school. The only time he didn’t attend the church was when he served during World War II.

In 1948, he came back and married Rebecca at Grace United Methodist. Together, they had two daughters – Jane and Ann. He lives less than a block from the church.

“The church is everything,” said Winders, 95, his voice starting to break. “I was a trustee and almost on every board of the church.

“This has been my life, and I enjoy coming here. I met a lot of people – I’m still acquainted with some of the most fantastic people, but we’ve also lost a lot. That’s just life.”

Aging congregations

Churches have stood as an unwavering sacred presence in Wichita’s downtown as the city has steadily changed.

The heyday of most congregations was from the 1950s through the 1970s. Then downtown began to deteriorate as stores and businesses moved outside the city’s core area and faithful congregations aged.

The churches became landmarks as nearby buildings were shuttered in the 1970s and 1980s. But downtown revitalization in recent years is again shifting the dynamics, and downtown congregations are once again put to the test – how to shift and change with the times. And how to attract younger members.

A Pew Research Center study in 2010 showed that 25 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 were not affiliated with a church. That compares with 10 to 15 percent of baby boomers who said they were not affiliated with a church.

Linder, the K-State professor, contends there may be a technological barrier that prevents younger generations from sharing their parents’ and grandparents’ religion.

“In the past, students could identify with a denomination,” Linder said. “They don’t do that anymore.

“They think their way through a mass of ideas that are out there on the Internet. They want to get away from their family’s traditional faith. It’s been a dramatic change in the last five years.”

It not that urban churches haven’t tried to adapt to attract younger members.

“Our older churches can’t keep up with the younger people who are reaching out for more exciting places,” said Linda Louderback, superintendent for the Wichita West district of the Great Plains United Methodist Conference. “For the youth of today, it is about the technology.”

And even though Grace United Methodist has tried to upgrade its appeal with images projected on big screens and different kinds of music, Louderback said, “The church simply doesn’t have the money to bring people in.”

Changing, adapting

From the 1980s through the present, some downtown areas have become pockets for homeless populations to gather or for low-income residents to find shelter. The churches have often reached out in mission and in service to those groups.

First Baptist Church, 216 E. Second St., has roots that go back to 1872, when 26 members began meeting in a store. It was once a flagship church in its denomination with nearly 4,000 members about 50 years ago.

A church split in the 1950s caused some members to leave, and by the late 1970s some members questioned whether the church should leave downtown. The congregation stayed and in 2002 began searching for ways to connect with the changing downtown population.

“We want a presence in the center of the city,” said the Rev. Steve Toews, minister of First Baptist. “We believe God has us where we are for a purpose.

“We are here to proclaim the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. We do that in diverse ways, and that is the one thing that unites all the fellowships.”

Over the years, the church has added services for Chinese, Lao-Thai, Hispanic and Arabic populations. It also has a neighborhood breakfast that meets every morning and a Final Sunday casual service on the last Sunday of the month that meets in the church gymnasium and concludes with a question-and-answer period.

“It has created a unique dynamic to the church,” Toews said. “Some people come to the church because they like the idea we are serving people in need. That’s been a positive of the church.

“The multiple fellowships wasn’t something that was happening 50 years ago. We talk often about how one congregation can be many fellowships.”

Rick Cline is minister at RiverWalk Church of Christ, 225 N. Waco. He said churches in the core area have to be willing to adapt to their surroundings and change as needed.

“Up until recent years, we haven’t had any neighbors but offices and office buildings,” Cline said.

“For the past five to seven years, we’ve had to get outside the walls of our church building and go into the community. Our mission is to serve God first but then serve people.”

That’s why, he said, the church has reached out and developed a partnership with Franklin Elementary School, near Douglas and Seneca, hosting festival-type events at the school and encouraging reading and math skills. It is also involved with the homeless overflow shelter and other service projects.

“For a lot of people today, they are looking for something meaningful to do,” Cline said, “not just come and sit in a church pew but be engaged and use their talents and resources to make a difference in the world.”

Cline thinks downtown churches can still make a difference, despite the changes.

“The demographics of downtown has changed,” he said. “We may not be as big as we were at one time, but all churches ebb and flow, even churches in the suburbs. It is part of our life cycles.

“I believe we can continue to serve people and call ourselves the hands and feet of Jesus in the community.”

Moving on

On March 22, Grace United Methodist Church had a special service to celebrate its history. More than 350 people attended.

Mary Hecox tells people she was born into Grace United Methodist Church.

“My parents started coming to this church in 1942,” she said. “It symbolizes my life. I call it my second home.

“My mother was always working in the kitchen doing all kinds of things. My father helped build the education building. He spent night after night here putting in all the woodwork. When I look at this building, I see my mother and my father.”

The current church building was constructed in 1910 as Grace Methodist Episcopal Church and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

The two-story brick building at the northeast corner of Topeka and Gilbert was built in the neoclassical revival style, according to the church building’s nomination for the national register. It is the second-oldest Methodist church building in Wichita – the first being St. Paul United Methodist Church at 13th and Broadway.

Grace United Methodist was also the first Wichita church to have air conditioning, which was installed in 1954, according to the nomination form.

Louderback, the Methodist superintendent, said there are no immediate plans for the building.

“We are trying to think of new ways to use the building, but it will be a substantial amount of money to fix,” she said. “That’s part of the reason it is closing.

“That’s the difficult challenge for this generation of pastors. They may have one foot in a world where the church used to be and the other foot where the church needs to go. The problem is we don’t know where that is.”

After Sunday, the church membership will be transferred to Bethany United Methodist Church at 1601 S. Main, about a mile south and west.

“Distance wise, it’s not too bad,” Winders, the longtime member, said of the new church. “But it won’t feel the same.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2015 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Easter service to be the last for historic Wichita church."