Dexter United Methodist Church acquired the building from its former denomination, but decided not to use it and put it up for sale. “Ideal for maintaining current use, redevelopment, or residential development with potential for 9 lots,” reads the online listing. The asking price? $3.1 million. | Photo by Mark Bialek
With its chevron windows and soaring cross, the mid-century modern church at 1415 Miller has been a west-side landmark since it was built by the Evangelical United Brethren in 1956. The Brethren and Methodists merged in 1968 to form the United Methodists.
According to Ann Arbor News articles on the Ann Arbor District Library’s Old News website, the sanctuary seats 470. It’s doubtful, however, that they were often filled: a 1973 article reported “about 170” members. The most recent post on the UMC website counted sixty-two—and an average attendance of just seventeen.
The pandemic was the final blow: though the congregation’s Facebook page is still live, the last post was in March 2020. Michigan’s Covid shutdown had just begun, and the post announced that services were on hold on the advice of the bishop. Soon afterward, a sign announced that the Dexter United Methodist Church would be moving into the building.
Recently, that was replaced by a “For Sale” sign from Colliers’ Chaconas Group. “Ideal for maintaining current use, redevelopment, or residential development with potential for 9 lots,” reads the online listing. The asking price? $3.1 million.
In October, a New York Times headline read, “For Sale: Hundreds of Abandoned Churches. Great Prices. Need Work.” In November, the Associated Press asked, “Why have thousands of United Methodist churches quit the denomination?”
Might this be a local example of both trends? Are there others, or counterexamples?
Longtime Realtor Ed Surovell points to another sale nearby in 2016, when the Free Methodist Church at 1951 Newport was sold to Campus Town Church of Ann Arbor, a Korean assemblage, for $662,500. A half-mile west, the New Apostolic Church at 1801 Miller was sold to Once Upon A Childhood LLC day care in 2014, which in turn sold it in 2017 to Jerry Plummer. Plummer turned the church into a residence and built two new houses—1799 and 1797 Miller—on what had been a parking lot. One less church, three more houses.
Either path is possible for the former Calvary Methodist. “We assumed ownership of the property from our denomination in the early months of the COVID pandemic,” emails Matt Hook, senior pastor of what was then the Dexter United Methodist Church. Since then, the 1,100-member congregation has changed denominations and names: one of sixty UMC congregations in Michigan that “disaffiliated” last year, it’s been rechristened Huron River Methodist Church.
“We are a part of the Global Methodist Church now, so we changed our name,” Hook writes. “There are many beautiful references in scripture to the word ‘river,’ we’re on Huron River Drive and also on the Huron River—we do baptisms in the river.”
Related: Church on Hold
Hook writes that the “change had to do with theology and practice rather than specific issues—using the same vocabulary, but different dictionaries, so to speak.” According to a May 2024 article in the New York Times, the schism was precipitated by the UMC’s move to reverse its “ban on practicing gay clergy” and “to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings.”
The Times reported that more than 3,000 congregations had already left the United Methodists for the Global Methodists over the issue. According to the U.S. Religion Census, the UMC had eight million members in the U.S. in 2020, but the Times article quoted an estimate by Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, that the number could drop by half in a decade.
That wasn’t what caused Huron River Church’s change of heart, however. “After COVID restrictions were easing, our Church Board determined that the Miller Rd. facility was not viable for starting a new church,” Hook writes. “Limited parking, significant facility modernization, and refurbishment costs were factors. And while some churches new and old are growing in AA, the failure of two Methodist Churches in Ann Arbor (including Calvary there on Miller Rd. and Greenwood) and the challenges facing two others not growing (Ann Arbor First UMC and West [Side] UMC) led us to conclude that resources from the sale of the property could be put to better use.”
And that’s the answer to the question: Why is Calvary United Methodist Church for sale?
Calls & Letters, January 2025
“We were all kind of shocked,” Betsy Blackmon said in a phone call. For a December article, we’d asked Matt Hook, senior pastor of Dexter’s Huron River Church, why his congregation was selling the former Calvary Methodist Church in Ann Arbor.
They’d originally planned to open a branch there, Hook said, but decided against it in part because Calvary and another Methodist church had failed, and “others [are] not growing,” including West Side United Methodist.
“We are growing, and are growing new families,” said Blackmon, a West Side church member. “We are actually in a growth period and it’s so nice—it’s refreshing.”
As a former member of Calvary United Methodist and sometimes the chair of both the Finance and Staff, Pastor, Relation committee I read your article “Landmark on the Market: Why is Calvary United Methodist Church for sale?” with interest. While the article gets a lot right, there are important details that are misleading and others that make the story much richer than what was presented.
First, the pandemic was not the “final blow.” The disposition of Calvary was determined before COVID became a “thing.” The only similarity with COVID is that the rot that permeated the institutional response to COVID is likely similar to the institutional rot that left the Calvary property for sale without a plan for “better use.” In addition to a non-existent plan for the facility there wasn’t any pastoral care of the Calvary Congregation despite having paid its “Ministry Shares” throughout its existence. Calvary’s fate was probably sealed as far back as 1968 when happenstance meant that the combined Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist Denominations had facilities in abnormal proximity.
Second, Dexter United Methodist did not “assume ownership of the property,” at least not technically. Technically the churches were merged with some expectations that there might be input by both churches. Calvary was never invited to participate in the manner outlined in the merger document.
Third, Hook states that “After COVID restrictions were easing… our church determined that the Miller Road facility was not viable for starting a new church.” Because of the poor process it is impossible to know if the Dexter church was made aware, but the limitations of the site were well known and discussed throughout the discussions of the Church’s future. Plans discussed included selling or donating the church property, either in conjunction with a merger or independently. Ultimately the decision to have a merger was made by the Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church without any direct consideration of Calvary’s leadership input (including as near as I can tell, the input of its appointed pastors).
The reality is that the Dexter church was focused on making sure that LGBTQ persons would neither serve or be married in their church and the United Methodist Church was focused on promoting and celebrating both. Neither seemed to recognize that who people love and how is not an institutional issue but reserved to the individuals and their god, however that might look. Meanwhile the best that can be said is that both the United Methodist Church and the Global Methodist Church lack mission focus. The worst is that they are both focused on institutional survival, not serving their members and congregations.
To understand the mismanagement or connivance that seems to be associated with the deal, start with the $3.1 million asking price. While the amount paid by Huron River Methodist Church to “disassociate” from the United Methodist Church is not public, the rumor is that the amount was $1.2 million. The Quit Claim Deeds for the Calvary location and the other two properties deeded by the United Methodist Church to Huron River Methodist Church all show an amount of $278,582. Assuming that the properties were all assigned equal amounts this works to a total of $835,746. A template of the disassociation agreements list things like Ministry shares, pension benefits, medical obligations and the like that make the $1.2 Million seem a reasonable estimate for the disassociation fee. Of course, this begs the question of how a property whose value on the Quit Claim Deed was $278,582 suddenly became worth $3.1 million over the course of less than two years.
One explanation is that the Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church is financially incompetent, essentially giving away a $3.1 Million dollar asset. However, it seems likely that the leadership of the Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church choose to pay off a congregation whose leadership was opposing changes to its Book of Discipline that would allow LGBTQ ordinations and weddings and what is now the Huron River Methodist Church took the asset knowing that it would disassociate and sell it. Throughout the process honest folks in both communities took the spoken and written intents and actions at face value and believed that the merger was intended to keep a church on Miller Road. Whether by incompetence or connivance, they were misled by leadership.
To ensure a “better use” for the asset, the former Calvary United Methodist Church (or sale revenues) less legitimate expenses should be returned to the Trust of the United Methodist Church. At the same time, the United Methodist Church should adopt administrative reforms to curtail the abuse that allowed this train wreck. The lifetime appointment of Bishops should be removed and the Trust Clause eliminated and replaced with a more common financial instrument.
Change is inevitable but it doesn’t need to be incompetent or disingenuous. The original location of Calvary Church is now the location of a marijuana store on Broadway. Perhaps the retail marijuana business needs another store adding another possibility to Mr. Surovell’s list of uses.