Built for 500, Down to 40: A Rural Mennonite Church Sells Its Sanctuary to a Growing Hispanic Congregation

• First Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake was founded in 1878 by Russian immigrants
• Its 1955–56 sanctuary once drew 400 to 500 people on a regular Sunday
• Attendance had fallen to about 40 when the building was sold in late 2015
• The buyer was Iglesia Pentecostal Unida Hispana

A rural Minnesota congregation has sold the sanctuary it built in the 1950s and moved into a nursing home chapel, Anabaptist World reported in February 2016.

First Mennonite Church in Mountain Lake was founded in 1878 by Russian immigrants. Its sanctuary, built in 1955 and 1956, once held 400 to 500 worshippers on a regular Sunday and up to 1,000 with overflow seating on special occasions. By 2015, Sunday attendance had fallen to about 40. The congregation sold the building towards the end of the year and held its last service there on 27 December. The buyer was Iglesia Pentecostal Unida Hispana, the United Hispanic Pentecostal Church.

Pastor Elaine Kauffman said the decision came from decreased size and budget concerns, and she tied the decline to changes in farming. “Farm families have shrunk,” she said. “People who send their youth off to university or college don’t feel like it’s a good result to have them come back and work on a pig farm.” Of the buyers, she said: “There are a lot of young people with a lot of energy.”

S. Roy Kaufman offered a wider view: “Rural churches are struggling, I think, because we no longer have a good understanding of who we are and what our mission is as a rural church within a rural community.” First Mennonite now worships in a local nursing home chapel, which has drawn in some residents.

The sale shows a building staying in Christian use as one community declines and another grows. A sanctuary built for hundreds became a burden for 40 but an asset for a younger congregation that needed space.

Jamaican rural churches face similar pressures as young people move to towns or abroad. A congregation with a large building and a small membership can consider selling or leasing to another church that is growing, rather than letting the building decline. The key is to act while the property is still in good condition and has value.

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