Bittersweet day. I got an email today from a member of the first church I served as a student pastor, Epworth-Roanoke UMC, in midtown, Kansas City, announcing that the church was closing, and would hold its last worship service this Sunday.
Epworth-Roanoke was a small neighborhood church, the kind of place that has largely gone by the wayside in urban America. It had a rich history of ministry to its area, first as two seperate churches a few blocks apart, Epworth Methodist and Roanoke Methodist, and later as a merged entity, worshipping in the Roanoke Church building (the Epworth building was an antique shop when last I left the area 6 years ago).
By 2001, when I first came to KC, it was a mosty elderly congregation, struggling to pay its bills and its part-time, student pastor, but it was still a vital place of ministry. Near a minor commercial district, a major medical center, and the home of a then new (what we now would probably call "emergent") church start, Jacob's Well, it continued to quietly and warmly welcome whoever came through its doors, even offering a home-cooked meal and free childcare to those who attended the AA meetings it housed on Thursday nights. That sense of welcome also led it to become one of two "reconciling" congregations (churches open to the full inclusion of GBLT individuals, for those who don't speak Methodese)in the Kansas City area, and made it a safe place to explore faith for all.
Now Epworth-Roanoke is no more. Not a surpise really - it's aging building had almost no parking and few other amenities that make it an attractive place for modern worship. The congregation had never been particularly large, so the funding needed to support a pastor and the other elements that are expected in the modern, program-driven church was not likely to ever develop. The church just didn't fit into any of the church-growth models that currently dominate our thinking.
So The few members remaining will gather for their last service this coming Sunday, and go their seperate ways, and another neighborhood church passes quietly into history.
But I will always remember Epworth-Roanoke. I will remember the faithful ones who came each week, and graciously put up with my fumbling, droning, early sermons. I'll remember watching people more than twice my age get down on the floor and patiently, joyfully, play with children while their parents got the support they needed to overcome their addictions. I'll remember their faithfulness to one another, and to God, in the face of a neighborhood and, frankly, a denomination that was slowly and steadily leaving them behind.
I'll remember, and when I remember, I will smile and give thanks, because their grace and devotion formed my spirit and my ministry, and helped me to know God's love more truly and deeply than ever before.
Well done, good and faithful servants. Bittersweet day.
