In the approach to the U.S. political elections, often in quiet conversations, we began to sense rising anxiety and fear in the voices of many spiritual leaders. People expressed concern — or even dread — thinking about the divisive, racist and hateful speech that had emerged in previous elections.
For those who lead congregations, there was the challenging and complex reality of offering both pastoral and prophetic ministry while at the same time assessing their own vulnerability and risk in this season.
A study published in 2024 by the Religion and Social Change Lab of Duke Divinity School reported that the almost 1,100 United Methodist congregations in North Carolina are theologically and politically diverse. This creates a “purple church,” in which people are often sitting and serving across the aisles from siblings in Christ who think differently from them.
Certain religious communities are gifted in navigating their mission in public and political spaces. The historically Black church is a noted exemplar. More recently, conservative evangelical congregations have influenced electoral politics. The mainline church, in which United Methodism is situated, has had neither a consistent voice nor a meaningful presence in political life, even though UMC churches are often anchor institutions at the heart of their communities.
Yet as the study notes, the mixed political affiliations of our UMC membership aren’t just a source of tension. They also offer an opportunity for the two sides to engage with each other. Indeed, local churches remain one of the few settings where such conversations can occur.
What would it mean for a purple church to enter faithfully into a contentious political election? And how could we hear the voice of Jesus in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”(Matthew 5:9), as both command and assurance?
To equip us in our faithful witness as peacemakers, the Peace Building Ministries of the Western North Carolina Conference launched the Purple Church Initiative in August 2024. This initiative offered a practical, intentional means of fostering peace in our differences. The resources included training for 20 clergy and laity using the 3 Practice Circles method, access to a Politics & Faith town hall in Charlotte, and digitally available guidelines for being a peaceful presence at the polls.
The core of the Purple Church Initiative was a free downloadable resource kit with weekly worship planning, Bible study, prayer guides and social media called Conversation Across the Aisles. At the end, members were invited to sign a Peace on Purpose pledge card to encourage them to be ambassadors of peace within their families, congregations and communities.
We estimate that a third of the churches in the Western North Carolina Conference engaged the Conversation Across the Aisles through sermon series, in Sunday school classes and small groups, and through weekly social media posts.
As part of this effort, Bishop Kenneth H. Carter Jr. preached a sermon across the region in the summer and fall called “Loving God, Loving My Neighbor and Loving My Country,” in which he connected Jesus’ teaching from two passages in Matthew 22: on paying taxes to Caesar (verses 15-22) and on the greatest commandments (verses 34-40).
The sermon was a reflection on democracy and equality rooted in the image of God in each person, and in it Carter distinguished between patriotism and Christian nationalism. He delivered this message in various ways, including in a video released a week before the election and as part of worship resources for a prayer service for peaceful elections.
We both heard anecdotally that the initiative was a success. In a rural county in western North Carolina, the chairperson of a political party said the Purple Church Initiative had opened conversations within his congregation. His community had been hit by Hurricane Helene, and political polarization was contributing to suspicion and a heightened ethos of violence in this difficult time. Through the initiative, people in the church and community engaged in healing conversations, he said.
In another instance, the pastor of a thriving urban church led the congregation through the weekly sermon series and offered small group discussions. Participants said they were grateful and relieved to have the sacred space and time to step away from their usual echo chambers and were able to have holy conversations across differences.
We know it’s not a perfect solution; we’ve heard criticism that the Purple Church Initiative allows people to avoid the hard conversations that love requires. Our experience has been different, however. We saw that for many congregations, the initiative offered an intentional process and context for neighbors to move toward one another. They could express deeply held convictions while finding unity in their core identity in Christ and in our Wesleyan tradition.
The idea for the initiative was to offer conversation starters, not conversation stoppers. We hope people will continue to engage in even deeper and more challenging dialogue moving forward. We know the election isn’t the end; it’s a beginning. And of course, we are still a purple church.
In his sermon “Catholic Spirit,” John Wesley said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?” To love alike requires us to be in genuine relationships that move beyond ignoring — or worse, silencing — different opinions. It requires us to engage in a conversation across the aisles that moves beyond keeping the peace to being ambassadors of peace.
Moving forward, we must boldly reclaim that our identity is not rooted in any political affiliation but instead in the beloved community. As disciples commissioned to transform the world, we must pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ and to the kinship of God that welcomes the stranger, embraces the disenfranchised and cares for the least of these. This is our unifying mission.
Now more than ever, our communities need to experience our faithful witness as United Methodists who make peace, not just keep it, by working together to be of one heart, notwithstanding our differences.
We know the election isn’t the end; it’s a beginning. And of course, we are still a purple church.
Years ago, Ken faced a struggle in the downtown church where he was serving as a young associate pastor. On a return visit to Duke Divinity School, he described the dilemma to Robert Wilson, an approachable and curious member of the faculty.
Wilson listened, paused and then began to talk about a book he had co-written in 1974 called “What’s Ahead for Old First Church.” It draws on a three-year study of more than 300 downtown congregations in more than 100 cities.
“You know, that book has sold and sold and sold!” he said with a smile.
The question at the heart of the book, published almost 50 years ago, remains: What is the future for “First Churches” — those anchor institutions in our cities? Ken returned to the book amid the pandemic and was struck by how much in it still resonates today.
How do you know whether your congregation is a First Church? (Keep in mind that a First Church might be called Central or Trinity or be named for one of the saints.)
These institutions are often described with three words: quality, prestige and leadership. The book notes several signs of an Old First Church:
- Is an easily recognized urban landmark.
- Is a symbol of its denomination.
- Is a symbol of the role that religion plays in a city.
- Is instrumental in giving birth to new churches.
- Is known for excellence in worship and music.
- Counts among its membership persons of affluence.
There are also some less research-based signs: Does your church have a wall dedicated to 8-by-10 photos of pastors past? Do you have a ceramics room, complete with kiln and ceramic figurines? Do you find yourself talking about a nostalgic past, when the congregation carried more influence? If so, you might be a First Church.
For those of us who regard the downtown big-steeple church of 50 years ago as the height of the mainline, it’s important to note that the book also points to these traits of an Old First Church:
- Is in decline.
- Is surrounded by change.
- Has deferred maintenance.
- Has more money than people (although that may be in question).
- Has leadership in denial about the trends.
- Yearns for a pastor who can recapture the glory of former times.
Wilson and his co-author, Ezra Earl Jones, are clear about the problem: “A large number of Old First Churches are rapidly approaching a crisis point.” We were surprised to see this — 50 years ago, these churches were in crisis?
This runs against the grain of a common narrative, which sees a generation ago as the era of glory and success. Many of the artifacts displayed in First Churches reinforce such a perception; they hold up the past by honoring an influential pastor or lay leader, a very large Sunday School class or youth group, and evidence of their former position of prominence in the community.
We can only imagine that the book sold so much because it identifies the paralyzing tension that many First Churches find themselves facing — then and now. They must honor and maintain the church of the past for longtime members while also creating a new church with new people to continue the gospel message of Jesus.
So what’s next for Old First Church? We would suggest that First Churches practice a more truthful remembrance of the past in order to move more faithfully into the future. This process includes observation, interpretation and intervention. The authors of “What’s Ahead for Old First Church” engaged in this kind of exercise, and our own congregations merit the same intentional process.
First Churches often have long histories and complex narratives. At the same time, they might have a propensity to oversimplify what is going on — whether within their buildings, among their people or in their surroundings.
A more nuanced observation helps us understand the multilayered context in which these churches are located. Cities are contested spaces; denominations are themselves a changing landscape; workforces are departing from commercial centers and in different ways returning to them; and the nature of work, gathering and spirituality are being revised by digital access and experience.
Observation leads to interpretation. A deep practice of interpretation involves multiple conversation partners — often drawn from fields as diverse as urban planning, economic development and community organizing.
We addressed this in our book “Fresh Expressions of People Over Property,” and we also highly recommend “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership,” by Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky.
Ken often asks leaders of these churches, “Whom are you learning from?” A church in Miami can learn from a church in San Antonio, and the same church in Miami can facilitate learning with a church in Los Angeles.
After that groundwork, intervention is crucial. The absence of an intervention can be a kind of work avoidance or even a failure of nerve.
First UMC in Miami is one example of a church that was willing to live through a necessary change. Audrey led a multiyear reinvention of the church and has lived the book’s question.
What resulted flowed from the iterative process of observation (what was going on within and around First UMC Miami), interpretation (what was needed in the next generations among the dynamic mission field surrounding the church), and intervention (the destruction of what had been, the migration of worship to a new setting for over three years, and the design and creation of a new structure with expanded purposes and partnerships).
First UMC Miami wrestled with the question, “What’s ahead?” and came up with an answer. Other First Churches need to do the same for themselves. The answer to the question is unique to each geographical context, each collection of leaders and each congregational history.
What’s ahead for Old First Church? Our conversations with lay and clergy leaders convince us that this remains a crucial question. Yet we believe in those institutions. They can thrive — if they have the courage to embrace and honor the past while building a pathway toward the future that God dreams about for vital churches in living communities.
So what’s next for Old First Church? We would suggest that First Churches practice a more truthful remembrance of the past in order to move more faithfully into the future. This process includes observation, interpretation and intervention.
First United Methodist Church of Miami was Audrey’s second pastoral appointment. She left a deeply challenging and meaningful missional ministry in South Miami to come to the big, shiny downtown church and find some rest, security and stability. She thought.
It didn’t take long to notice that the exterior cross was not shiny but rusty, the roof was leaking, and the sanctuary pulpit had been eroded by termites. The building maintenance list was twice as long as the hospital visit list. So much for rest!
This is the reality of most of our beloved “Old First Churches.” Because First Churches — often, the first of their denominations to be established in a city — are in strategic locations and have significant influence, they have long drawn the attention of observers.
In 1974, Ezra Earl Jones and Robert Wilson wrote a book titled “What’s Ahead for Old First Church?” In their research, they focused on the role of the downtown church in the civic, religious and social life of a city, region and denomination. They noted a number of common traits of Old First Churches — quality, prestige and leadership.
And yet reading their work almost 50 years later, we were struck by the undeniable sense that already in the early ’70s the Old First Church was in decline.
The disestablishment of mainline religion was underway; the function of downtown areas was shifting, especially as the suburbs were growing; and the aberrant patterns of convergent and cohesive communities that had occurred in the post-World War II 1950s were giving way to divergent patterns of social life.
Audrey’s church fit this model, which we included in our 2020 book, “Fresh Expressions of People Over Property.” First UMC Miami’s history is deeply linked to its origins as a downtown church with multiple locations, narratives and identities.
Miami is magical, especially at night. This was not the case 126 years ago, when First United Methodist Church was birthed. The location on the Miami River had been occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans and had been visited by Ponce de Leon in the 1500s; the city itself was incorporated in 1896.
At that time, it wasn’t much of a city, comprising wooden structures, mangrove trees and mud. Many of our early members imagined more; the people who built the city were also the founders of White Temple ME Church (in the northern faction of the Methodist Episcopal denomination) and Trinity ME Church South (in the southern one).
Both churches started in houseboats, then upgraded to buildings and eventually erected their sunbathed sanctuaries just two blocks from one another. The churches had been in their new downtown buildings only about 20 years when the northern and southern Methodists reunited.
Although the two churches were now under the same denominational umbrella and less than a mile apart, they never spoke of merging — they were too big. The growth continued until the ’60s and ’70s. But perhaps spurred by a damaging fire at White Temple, the two churches merged in 1966, meeting at the Trinity campus for several years before constructing a new building on Biscayne Boulevard, completed in 1981.
White flight continued, and by the ’90s, most mainline churches in Miami had lost 50% of their membership. Many wondered what was ahead.
Urban theorist Richard Florida has noted that suburbanization “accentuated [the] fissure of urban areas into separate zones for working and living.” Many of our downtown structures were defined and built for an earlier way of life. But church leaders were slow to adapt to change.
Still, adaptation would come. Many downtown churches simply followed their people to the suburbs; as we know, systemic racism was and is a factor in real estate markets.
Alongside the change came a nostalgia for the past — when sanctuaries and Sunday school classes were filled with people, when prominent preachers held esteemed positions in the community, when political and civic leaders of influence sat in the pews and were active as members.
This selective memory does harm to leadership in the present, lowering morale and increasing anxiety and stress.
When Audrey arrived as pastor of FUMC Miami in 2015, some members still identified themselves as “Templers” or “Trinity.” Many carried with them the nostalgia and prestige passed on to them by the ancestors who had built the city and had stayed when so many others left.
Not all were longtime locals, of course. The faithful folks she inherited were from more than 25 countries around the world, and they also embraced FUMC’s identity “in the heart of the city with the city in its heart.”
The men’s group started a powerful ministry with the unhoused. Many members started tutoring at local elementary schools. The church became a leader in Miami’s People Acting for Community Together and took on many social issues downtown. FUMC’s music was far from contemporary, and its sanctuary bore no screens, but each year new people trickled into the church.
Like many bighearted downtown churches across the country, First UMC found that love was not enough to pay the bills and do new things. Solutions such as budget cuts and renting out space helped for only so long. The church was looking at half a million dollars in upgrades, such as improving bathrooms and organ pipes — expenditures that were necessary but did not bring in new people.
For many churches, large property decisions arise from two main drivers: declaration and desperation. First UMC was motivated by both.
The congregation wanted to stay downtown to declare the gospel and serve the homeless. They also were becoming desperate. Audrey spent her first few months at FUMC crunching numbers. How much square footage was used for ministry? How many of the top 25 givers were over 65? (Answer: too many.)
The questions and the data led to a decision: They had to do something.
How could First UMC remain an Old First Church, willing to understand its past and appreciate its traditions, yet discern what in all of that could be released and repurposed for mission in a changed landscape?
The church formed an exploratory development committee, which created a plan and process to partner with a developer. It then sold a little over an acre to a developer who is building two towers on the property. The church will occupy 20,000 square feet on a corner of one building, and the rest of the building will have 696 microunit apartments, 40 of which will be used as a hotel. The second tower will be residential.
The income received from the sale is being used to buy and build the church’s portion of one building. The rest will be in an endowment to fund the church in perpetuity.
The vision is to have a hub in downtown and spokes in the city. The spokes will be created by the missional and faith needs in their locations, such as a new brunch church directed toward the LGBTQ community or missional ministry with veterans.
FUMC of Miami does not want to stop following God where God might lead them now that they are building a beautiful home. Each year, they’re working to live into a new future for their beloved — new — First Church.