Malvern church sells historic building to give more to community

To save the congregation and to put more into the community, the Malvern United Methodist Church recently decided to sell its historic building.

• Old church buildings are expensive to maintain and hard for shrinking, rural congregations to manage.
• “It was a very brave thing, what this congregation did. The easy thing to have done was just to keep doing what we were doing and then fizzling out,” said Pastor Joni Hickey.
• “It's an unusual decision because we do have so much emotion tied up in our building spaces, but it’s a faithful decision,” said Rev. Melissa Drake, the Superintendent of the Aldersgate District in Iowa.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Societal norms have changed and many rural church congregations are shrinking.

I’m Katrina Markel your southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter, in Malvern, I’m here because the United Methodist Church recently made the decision to close the doors on its historic building.

“It was built in 1893. Not new.”

Historic, but expensive, says church treasurer Bev Dashner.

“It’s a lot to heat, it’s a lot to cool. It’s a lot all the way around,” she said.

To save the congregation, they gave up the church building; moving services to a more accessible space in the public library. Pastor Joni Hickey ministers to three rural congregations, including Malvern.

“It was a very brave thing, what this congregation did. The easy thing to have done was just to keep doing what we were doing and then fizzling out,” said Hickey.

As rural populations decline, so too, does church attendance. Dashner watched it happen. She’s been a member since 1965.

“The lack of children, I think, makes my heart the saddest,” she said.

In 2021, Gallup reported religious membership dropped below 50% for the first time in the United States.

Rev. Melissa Drake is the Aldersgate District Superintendent, which includes Malvern. She says a relatively small number, five percent, of United Methodist congregations in Iowa closed last year, but she sees Malvern’s story as a happy one.

“It's an unusual decision because we do have so much emotion tied up in our building spaces, but it’s a faithful decision,” said Drake.

“Faithful” she says, because the congregation can put their money and energy into the community and not the building. Dollar-for-dollar, Drake says rural congregations often do the most good.

“So, when we talk about feeding people, we’re talking about our actual neighbors across the road ... Just because we’re rural, doesn’t mean we’re less. And I think that’s often the story that gets overlooked,” she said.

The congregation is holding services with its sister congregations for the summer. And there’s a sale pending for the 19th-century building.

In Malvern, where there’s still another chapter for this historic building and for the congregation, I’m your southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter, Katrina Markel.