RIP: Church of All Nations

While in Boston today, I decided to visit Church of All Nations, which I served as youth pastor over thirty years ago. The new building, completed the year after I graduated and left town is still there, but no longer looks new. More to the point, the congregation itself is no longer there. It's still a church, and still slightly multi-ethnic, but no longer United Methodist. That's sad, because the United Methodists had been there for over a century, doing really good work with several generations of folks in need in the heart of the city.

I enjoyed the service of the new congregation, called City on a Hill Center but found it stronger on fervor than theology. Everyone involved talked really fast, but with reasonable clarity. There was some speaking in tongues, or at least in one or more languages I don't know, but with frequent breaks for comments in English that may have been interpretation thereof. It seemed natural and routine for that congregation, and the place was fairly full. I wish them well, but missed seeing anyone I knew from the old days. The service was still going strong at the 3 hour mark when those with me asked to leave. Had we stayed, a good meal was hot and ready downstairs.

What killed Church of All Nations? I don't really know, but suspect it was part of the continuing decline of United Methodism nation-wide over the past thirty years. To me, it often seemed the only issues of importance to denomination leaders were ordaining Gay pastors, and defending abortion on demand. Neither of those goals would have been popular with folks at Church of All Nations, for whom many other issues would have been more pressing -- such as figuring out why the denomination was losing 2% of its members each year, as other churches grew.

The United Methodist Church (among other denominations) has been called "the Democratic Party at Prayer", and the last 30 years haven't been good for the Democratic Party either, possibly for similar reasons.

I wish both the United Methodist denomination and the Democratic party a return to health, but don't expect either of them to do so until their priorities revert to ones acceptable to more Americans.