Church in Homewood prepares for deconsecration, closure after 66 years

After beginning the month with a celebration of their church, members of St. Andrew United Methodist in Homewood will close the doors a final time after a service Sunday.

About 80 people closely tied to the church, including two former pastors, came out for the June 2 celebration to showcase accomplishments at St. Andrew and share the congregation’s remembrances. The celebration also featured the return of a choir, which the church hasn’t had since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We reached out to as many former pastors and former members and children who are now adults who had grown up in the church, and it was very meaningful for all of us to hear all their stories,” said Mary Lee Hoganson, church council chairman and a member since 1987. “We had a sharing and a brunch. We had two former pastors — HD Mitchell and Bonnie Campbell, who did the last part of her ministerial training with us. Both of them spoke as part of the message that morning.”

They kept the event light “because it was a celebration and we did not want it to feel like a wake. Perhaps at our last service it will feel that way,” she said, adding that a microphone in the fellowship area allowed people to share stories of the church, which formed in 1958 with 50 members.

“In contrast to that celebration will be our final worship service, which will be both a goodby to Pastor (Linny) Hartzelll, who is moving on to other ministries, and a formal part of the service called the church deconsecration,” she said. “There won’t be special music. I feel like it will be more ceremonial. … There’s a part of a service when a pastor leaves and is reappointed, and we’ll be doing that as well – saying goodbye to our pastor and wishing her well.”

Audrea Nanabray, superintendent of the Lake South District of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church will lead the deconsecration service, which is set for 9:30 a.m. June 23 at the church, 18850 Riegel Road. The community is invited.

Hoganson said discussions about the church’s future in recent years led to its members becoming closer. “Everyone has been involved in discussions, sermons, has had a voice,” she said. “It has been sort of ironically something that has drawn us closer as we prepare to scatter.”

One option had been to merge with another church, such as Olympia Fields Methodist Church, Hoganson explained.

“The plan was to merge many of the Lake South churches – there would be a host church and other churches would leave their buildings and become part of a host church. We elected not to do that and would officially close our doors and let our members decide where to be,” she said.

“In the short term, membership will be transferred to Olympia Fields Methodist Church, which we’ve developed a good relationship with. Many of our members will go there and others will go to churches closer to their home and others will choose new denominations.”

Nanabray plans to use the St. Andrew property, which will revert to the conference, as a “new worship community, one that will provide ongoing ministries within the community. It would be Methodist,” Hoganson said, and include less-traditional worship services. “We are considered officially, unlike almost any other Methodist churches, to be multiracial,” she added. “I would hope it continues to reflect the community.”

The pandemic led to a smaller membership at St. Andrew — about 30 to 35 who attend in person and about a dozen who watch via video, and the building’s roof “has continued to drain us,” she said. Its three sections, including a flat roof, create lots of opportunities for leaks. Even a $35,000 campaign that paid for major roof repairs provided only a short respite.

“I just feel like for the size of our church, we’ve continued to serve the community in lots of ways. I know that wherever our members go, they’ll be looking for another home where they can do that,” Hoganson shared.

One group that will continue is United Women of Faith, because it has members who are not all Methodist and it has its own charter and bank account. “I’ve never belonged to that group but I’m going to join to have ministry work and a relationship with people,” Hoganson said.

Something she’s proud of is the Boy Scout troop St. Andrew sponsored for decades, she said, adding that her son was the one “who asked to join the church and we went with him.”

Just as important, though, are the church’s well-known music programs, including its choir of 40 people and five-octave handbell choir; the Montessori school it hosted for more than 20 years; Appalachian mission trips; ministering to the homeless via PADS (now Beds Plus); and becoming a “reconciling church,” she shared.

To become a reconciling church, members went through an 18-month discernment process, educating themselves “about what wasn’t said in the Bible” and developing a welcoming statement that members voted to accept.

“It means everyone is welcome in leadership,” Hoganson said, adding that 93% of members voted to approve it. The statement includes wording noting that “God’s love extends to all” and that the church welcomes people no matter their sexual orientation and gender identity.

For Mitchell, who served as pastor at St. Andrew from 1979 to 1993, one of the church’s biggest successes came as a complete surprise: a living Last Supper based on Leonardo da Vinci’s mural in which each figure came to life and talked about his experience with Jesus.

“I thought it would be kind of schmaltzy, so I resisted it,” he said. “It turned out to be very moving when they came around in character and served the Last Supper to the congregation.”

He also recalled a women’s spring luncheon and fashion show he initially thought was “too frivolous,” but became a huge success and “the most fun that all of us had.”

Another fun surprise was the softball team that he was initially reluctant to authorize because of a bad experience at a former church when things got too competitive. “It turned out to be a real social network building, strengthening the overall bonds within the congregation,” he said, “particularly when it was infiltrated by a fearless African American woman who wanted to play and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She made it coed – that was delightful.”

Mitchell said although he supported PADS, it was the congregation that got the ball rolling on that ministry in 1992, which continues with members providing meals to the organization.

“So I just kind of got behind it as I did for many successful programs of the congregation. I usually wasn’t the instigator and the congregation was really the people, not primarily the pastor. I always appreciated that,” he said.

Mitchell, the church’s longest-serving pastor, is thankful for many of its ministries: adopting a Vietnamese family with three teenagers; hosting an interfaith Thanksgiving Eve service with two Jewish congregations and a Catholic church with help from the Homewood-Flossmoor High School choir; helping pay to found a university in Zambia that still trains nurses and ministers; and doing pulpit exchanges with African American congregations and “building bridges across society divisions.”

He hopes St. Andrew will be remembered as a “good citizen” of the community, metropolitan area and the world.

“They were quite vital during the time when I was there, which made our trip on June 2 very, very poignant,” he said, “not just for me but everybody who was there — and a lot of people who wanted to be there and could not.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.