Used One Hour a Week, Now Open 14 Hours a Day: A Closed Church Becomes a Ministry Centre for a Dozen Congregations

• Christ United Methodist Church in San Diego’s North Park was closed as a congregation in 2011
• Its 25,000-square-foot 1950s building became the Christ United Methodist Ministry Center
• About a dozen multi-ethnic congregations and social programmes now use it
• The centre serves around 1,000 people a week and is open from 8am to about 10pm

A church building that closed as a traditional congregation has found a busier life than ever, UM News reported in August 2014.

Christ United Methodist Church in San Diego’s North Park neighbourhood, formerly First Evangelical United Brethren Church, occupies a 25,000-square-foot building constructed in the 1950s. It was decommissioned as a traditional congregation in 2011. Rather than sell it, the church repurposed it as the Christ United Methodist Ministry Center.

The centre now hosts about a dozen multi-ethnic congregations and a range of social programmes, and serves around 1,000 people a week. It is open from 8am until 9.30 or 10pm every day.

“Here was a church that was used one hour on a Sunday morning,” said the Rev Bill Jenkins, the centre’s pastor and executive director. The Rev Myron Wingfield, a former district superintendent, explained why the old congregation struggled: “Like a lot of urban congregations, its core members were mostly commuting from other places.” District superintendent the Rev John Farley said of the congregations now sharing the building: “They’re finding a home in Wesleyan grace.”

The model turns a building from a single congregation’s home into shared infrastructure. Several small congregations, each unable to afford a building of its own, share costs and space, and community programmes fill the weekday hours.

Jamaican churches with large buildings and small congregations could consider a similar approach: hosting other congregations, schools, clinics or training programmes under written agreements that cover rent, utilities and responsibilities. A building in use every day is easier to maintain, better protected and more valuable to its community than one that stands empty most of the week.

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