Church site resurrection

When a church closes its doors, it leaves only silence: no cars in the parking lot, no children running through the halls, no adults greeting and laughing.

That’s what happened to Sunset Baptist Church a few months ago.

“We were all disappointed,” said Pat Smith, a member since 1986. “Our attendance for the past 10 years was kind of a roller coaster.

“It would look like it was growing, then dwindle again. Most of our members were older, and we lost many of them.”

The last straw was their pastor’s accepting a position at an Oregon church. Sunset Hill’s tiny membership knew it had to make some difficult choices.

They couldn’t afford to hire another pastor, so they voted to disband the church.

The pressing concern, then, involved the disposal of their property, at Sunset and Government Way, just west of downtown. They considered a variety of options, such as donating it to the Inland Empire Baptist Association or to the Northwest Baptist Convention.

“We prayed about it and talked about it for many weeks,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, another church was also struggling. Eugene Singleton, pastor of St. Matthews Institutional Baptist Church, at 630 S. Arthur St. on the lower South Hill, was facing huge repair bills.

“We got some professionals to look at our plumbing, electrical, foundation, handicap access, and so on,” he said. “We would never be able to do all that work.

“Just the roof alone would cost some $30,000.”

That’s when he turned to networking.

“I realized we were helpless,” he said. “We had no money to go forward and no money to go backwards, so I cried out to our association to have mercy for myself and the small congregation.”

His church had been aligned with the Inland Empire Baptist Association for several years.

He didn’t know at the time that Sunset Hill had just voted to give its property to Airway Heights Baptist Church. The only stipulation was that the property “still be used for the Lord’s work,” Smith said.

Airway Heights, also affiliated with the Inland Empire Association, soon heard about St. Matthews’ situation. Dale Jenkins, Airway Heights’ pastor, and his son Brian, associate pastor, met with Singleton.

The missions committee of the Airway Heights church walked through the Sunset Hill neighborhood, praying and meeting people.

Its members all concluded that a congregation should remain in the area. And, they agreed the most logical congregation to do that would be St. Matthews, which has about 65 members.

“It was a perfect fit,” Brian Jenkins said. “Everyone knew this was God’s desire for this place.

“As a church, we couldn’t have been more excited. We decided unanimously to give them the property.”

The reaction of St. Matthews echoed that of Airway Heights.

“I was at their business meeting when they voted to accept,” Jenkins said. “The whole church was so excited, it was almost like a revival.”

Singleton sees numerous benefits to the Sunset Hill location. For one, access is much easier.

“The convenience of the new place, the big parking lot and the handicap ramp,” he said, are all factors that will help older members.

Brian Jenkins agrees. Besides the physical layout, he said, the Sunset Hill facility offers St. Matthews a new area for outreach.

“They’re coming in with a fresh vision for the community,” Jenkins said. “They’re a very active church.

“They are interracial, and they can reach a lot of the people in that area, whereas a single-focus church might not.”

So, what will happen to St. Matthews’ former building? Airway Heights Baptist Church, the new owner of the old property, hasn’t yet figured that out. Jenkins said,

“We’re looking at what to do with it. It would be a big cost to repair the place. We’re just going to have to pray and carefully decide.”

St. Matthews members said their final goodbyes to the old location on Dec. 3. The next week they met for worship in their new building at Sunset Hill, and the silence that had engulfed the once-empty church disappeared.

Sounds of cars in the parking lot mingled with laughter, greetings and shouts of “Hallelujah!”

Singleton expressed his congregation’s sentiments when describing Airway Heights’ generosity.

“They bent over backwards and did so much more than we expected,” he said. “We could hardly believe people could be so good.”

He paused and sighed. “I just can’t stop thanking God.”