Church closed
The former Trinity United Methodist Church in Eugene, Ore.
The closure of Trinity United Methodist Church in Eugene, Ore., led to public protests recently despite explanations from conference leaders that the congregation suffered from conditions that contributed to its demise.
In an email posted online from the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and a news story on the conference website, Crater Lake District Superintendent John Tucker cited Paragraph 2549.3(b) of The 2016 Book of Discipline as the conference's authority for closing the congregation. The paragraph says that a church may be closed under "exigent circumstances" defined as “situations where a local church no longer serves the purposes for which it was organized or incorporated, or where the local church property is no longer used, kept, or maintained by its membership as a place of divine worship of The United Methodist Church.”
Rev. Tucker said the decision, made in consultation with Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth (Greater Northwest Area) and other district superintendents, was made for several reasons:
- difficulty electing trusted leaders,
- exhaustion from existing leaders,
- a culture of distrust that includes anonymous agents seeking to undermine the pastoral team, and
- lack of trust with staff.
Conference communicator Kristen Caldwell spoke with local television station KVAL about the decision, which drew a small protest on Nov. 26 when the church was no longer open for worship service.
According to KVAL's story quoting Caldwell, "conversations about closing the church initially came from members within the church in early September during a town hall, where an informal survey was taken to gauge the opinion of those congregants."
Members who disagreed with closing the church set up a website, savetrinityeugene.org. Posts on the website contend that "the vast majority of the congregation rejected the idea of selling the church altogether." Protesters also asserted that longtime church members were willing to step into leadership positions. The website contends the conference closed the church in order to sell the property. The website doesn't say whether Trinity UMC intended to disaffiliate, but called itself one of the "more progressive" churches in Eugene. See a video of the closure announcement.
However, according to quote from Caldwell in the KVAL story, "'By the time that this had happened the conditions there had gotten so volatile, and so hostile, that the decision was ultimately made that this cannot [continue] to exist in this method.'"
Caldwell also told KVAL that the conference was working with two local outreach programs, Egan Warming Center, and FISH Food Pantry, to continue their services to the community.
The Trinity property is now under the control of the Oregon-Idaho Conference board of trustees, according to the Book of Discipline provision that all property is held "in trust" for the annual conference.
The "exigent circumstances" provision has come under fire previously this year. In the North Carolina Annual Conference, the closure of Fifth Avenue UMC in Wilmington, N.C., was met with a civil lawsuit that was dismissed by a local court in September. North Carolina Bishop Connie Shelton and Harbor District Superintendent Tara Linn gave Fifth Avenue's decline as the reason for its closure.
In an affidavit responding to Fifth Avenue's lawsuit, Rev. Linn cited demographic statistics showing that population in a 3-mile radius of the church had grown by 12 percent since 2010, while Fifth Avenue's membership had dwindled to 205 members with an average weekly worship attendance of 20 persons. In addition, the church had received around $12,000 in grants from the conference over six years to repair its building and support its mission project providing weekend food packs to children living in poverty. Both Rev. Linn and Bishop Shelton cited these and other examples of the legal relationship between the church and the conference as justification for the "exigent circumstances" closure.
Prior to its closure, which subsequently was approved by the 2023 session of the North Carolina Conference, Fifth Avenue UMC had begun the process outlined in Discipline Paragraph 2553 to disaffiliate from the denomination. Aggrieved church members contended their intention to disaffiliate was the reason for the conference closing the church, which conference officials denied.
United Methodist Insight Editor Cynthia B. Astle contributed original reporting to this article.