“We Like Each Other”: A Shrinking Congregation Sells Its Building and Rents a Room Instead

• Summit Mennonite Church in Barberton, Ohio, was founded in 1965
• Active membership had fallen to about two dozen
• It sold its building to Barberton Area Community Ministries
• It now meets in a fellowship room at Grace United Church of Christ

A small Ohio congregation decided to downsize rather than disband, Anabaptist World reported in December 2023.

Summit Mennonite Church in Barberton, near Akron, was founded in 1965. By the time it faced its future, active membership had shrunk to about two dozen. In 2021 it began a discernment process with an outside facilitator and interim pastors Patrick and Christine Nafziger, looking honestly at its finances and viability.

Members chose to continue. One wrote on a sticky note during the process: “We like each other.” The congregation sold its building to Barberton Area Community Ministries, which planned to continue the community garden Summit had started and to use the facility for food assistance programmes. The article did not give the price.

Summit now meets in the fellowship room of Grace United Church of Christ in Norton, two miles away. It kept key items such as banners, a wooden cross, a peace lamp, a podium and hymnbooks, and sold or gave away the rest. Instead of hiring a pastor, it relies on lay leaders and supply pastors, and it replaced formal committees with a simpler structure.

Selling the building removed what are often a small congregation’s largest costs: maintenance, insurance and utilities. It also kept the property in community service, since the buyer was a local ministry.

Small Jamaican congregations struggling with building costs have similar options: sharing or renting space from another church, or selling to a ministry that will keep the building in use. Separating the congregation’s life from the building’s upkeep can give a small church years more of ministry.

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