Covenant News

Eight Covenant Churches Cease Ministries

ROSEMONT, IL (June 26, 2003) - The writer of Ecclesiastes wrote that to everything there is a season and it is no different when one assesses the life and death of a local church.

Eight congregations officially ended their ministries in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) as delegates attending this morning's session of the 118th Annual Meeting approved removing the churches from the denominational roster of churches. Four of them ended ministries within a decade of becoming members of the ECC - Central Covenant Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Cedar Heights Covenant Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bethesda Evangelical Covenant Church in Miami, Florida, and Mercy Covenant Church in San Clemente, California.

The departure of a church planting pastor and difficulties in securing a permanent worship facility were factors in some of the closures. In many cases, members of the closing churches have integrated into nearby Covenant congregations.

For other congregations, the ministry life cycle was much longer. Two congregations were more than 100 years old when they decided to close - Trinity Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Bethel Covenant Church in Flossmoor, Illinois. Two others, the Evangelical Covenant Church of Kinistino, Saskatchewan, and LifeSource Community Church of Phoenix, Arizona, had ministries that spanned more than 50 years.

The Evangelical Covenant Church of Kinistino, under longtime pastor Ed Moore, held its final service in November 2002 after serving the community faithfully and making an impact especially with area children. As recently as the late 1990s, the church's Adventure Club was serving more than 40 children through its mid-week program. Canada Conference Supt. Jeffrey Anderson stated that the church was served by a veritable Who's Who of Canada Conference pastors, including Eric and Albert Josephson, Clifford Campbell, Larry and Keith Fullerton, J. Melvin Berg and Reynold Samundsen.

"The faithful group of core members simply could not continue to find the full range of resources needed to have the kind of ministry they felt would be honoring to the Lord," reported Anderson. "They decided that to be a 'Sunday only chapel' was not what the community needed." To quote the church chair, Ron Foster: "On the sad side of this day, we have come here to close down a ministry that had been going on for 48 years. I thank God that He knows all things. We can be sure that His work will never stop . . . remember that we are still family; we had the privilege of fellowship together under this ministry. For that, I know, I will be eternally grateful."

Trinity Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the oldest church to close this year, having organized in 1890. The congregation once had a peak membership of 275 and had an average worship attendance of 180 as late as 2001, according to statistics provided by the Covenant. In April 2002, however, a proposal to relocate was defeated by a very narrow margin and the church split over the issue, eventually closing last September. "It was a generational divide," said Northwest Conference Supt. Paul Erickson in his report about the church closure. "The younger members left and those remaining could not sustain ministry."

Meanwhile, Bethel Covenant Church (organized in 1898) had a peak membership of 122 and its previous pastors include Mary Miller, who is now the Covenant's vice president of administration. The church, which was started as a Swedish Mission congregation in Chicago Heights, officially closed its doors last June. Its building is now used by an incoming member of the Covenant, Friends4Life Covenant Church.

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