LIFESTYLES
WEEKEND, DECEMBER 16-17, 2017
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
The congregation at the Pendleton United Methodist Church circles up to sing “Bind Us Together” at the end of a Sunday service.
Beautiful
albatross
Congregation opts to sell crumbling Pendleton church
By KATHY ANEY
East Oregonian
For sale: beautiful 111-year-old
church with stained glass windows,
quarried stone and pipe organ: $410,000.
The Pendleton First United Methodist
Church, despite its elegant grandeur, has
become a money pit for its small, close-
knit congregation. Church members
recently voted to sell their house of
worship, but not without plenty of reflec-
tion and agonizing.
“This building is old and we have
tried to keep it up, but it’s consuming
our resources,” said Wanda Remington,
president of the church’s administrative
council. “We think our resources could
be used better in other places than trying
to rehab a 100-year-old building.”
She paused.
“It was an extremely difficult decision
to make,” Remington said. “But we
realized this church is
an albatross. It’s a beau-
tiful
albatross, don’t get
“We do a lot me wrong,
but its still
of laughing, an albatross.”
church, located
but behind the at The
352 S.E. Second
shows evidence
laughing is a St.,
of water damage,
lot of emotion.” black mold, asbestos,
cracking and peeling,
— Virginia Conrad,
crumbling mortar and
member of the
deferred maintenance.
Pendleton United
Jim Pierce, the veter-
Methodist Church
inarian-turned-preacher
who leads this tiny band
of believers, arrived
from Tennessee in July 2014. He leads
about 35 people in worship each Sunday
in a space that could hold 300.
Last Sunday, about 20 people stood
in the glow of two huge stained glass
windows and sang as Judy Jenner played
the church’s floor-to-ceiling pipe organ
with gusto. The organ wrapped the
worshipers in rich reverberations.
Pierce took the microphone and
addressed his flock about the joys and
difficulties of going home for the holi-
days. He ended with a statement that
had double meaning, considering the
impending move from the stone church
that has sheltered them for decades.
“Home is anywhere we meet God
face to face,” he said. “You are God’s
people. We are all God’s people. We’re
getting ready to come home.”
See CHURCH/4C
EO file photo
Members of the Pendleton United Methodist Church recently voted to sell the 111-year-old
building located at 352 S.E. Second Street.