After 112 years, Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church held its last service Sunday.
Since 2014, the church was the home of Turning Point, a United Methodist ministry that serves people who are homeless. As Turning Point moved its operations to the VAC Opportunity Campus on Business Loop 70, the church struggled to find ways to replace the income that was coming from the ministry group’s rent.
“We kind of did the finances with (Turning Point) gone, and there was no way to keep the church open without it,” Carolyn Hunt, church council secretary, said.
During the discussion of closure, church leaders proposed efforts to keep the church open. They explored several options to keep the church financially viable, including new ministries and alternative uses for the building, but none materialized.
A tight-knit community
On Sunday, the church held its final “homecoming” service to celebrate the history of the church.
The event brought together people from all stages of life. Church pews filled with current members, past members and a pipeline of pastors dating back to the 1970s.
These pastors included Kathy Morrison, Meg Hegemann, Brad Bryan and Drew McCausland. Each pastor reflected on a different era of the church, sharing stories of ministry, outreach and the congregation’s willingness to serve those in need.
Current pastor Drew McCausland joined the parish in 2024. Although McCausland’s time at the church was cut short, he reflected upon the impacts the church made on him in a short amount of time.
“I was very blessed to see their heart in action every day,” McCausland said about the members he has met.
As people shared memories and stories, the church served cake and ice cream. Historical paintings, letters, quilts, old photos and books from the church’s past were laid out for viewing.
Generations of memories
Tara Cox and her family have a long history within the church — dating back five generations.
“As a teenager, I sat with my mom and my two sisters in one pew,” Cox said. “I could look across the aisle and see my grandparents and my great-grandma. It was neat for me.”
Cox’s great-grandmother began attending the church in 1916. She was one of the “faithful four,” a group of four women who were the “backbone” of progress and change for the church in the 1940s and ‘50s, Cox said.
Some members treated the church like their home, instead of just completing Sunday service there. Six days a week, members were in and out of the church. When the temperature dipped below 25 degrees, some members were there all night.
“You know, a lot of churches are really nice, really sweet, but you don’t see that everyday serving the community like you do in Wilkes,” Hunt said.
Other than Turning Point, Wilkes helped the community in other ways. Loaves and Fishes, provided by St. Francis House of Hospitality, was one of them.
Beginning in 2010, Loaves and Fishes kitchen operated out of the church’s basement. The program provided free meals every night for 40 years and gave church members and others the chance to volunteer. Loaves and Fishes moved to 1509 Ashley St. in 2024 and is one of the programs moving to the VAC Opportunity Campus.
The church also provided other resources to homeless people, offering food and shelter when necessary.
Brad Bryan, who served as the church’s pastor from 2016 to 2023, said the work at Wilkes was rewarding.
“The willingness to step outside what was known to them and step outside what was comfortable to them, for the sake of the community,” Bryan said. “It was a beautiful thing to be a part of.”
Bryan now serves as lead pastor at Keystone United Methodist Church in Kansas City.
‘It gave us purpose’
Diane Peterson has been with the church for 12 years and served as the council treasurer. Peterson played a big role in keeping the program running over the years and said the church means a lot to her.
Now, members of the church, such as Peterson, are looking for a new home. Missouri United Methodist Church and St. Luke United Methodist Church have both made efforts to find a home for the congregation, including welcoming them to their churches.
“My husband and I have dedicated large amounts of our life (to Wilkes) in the last 13 years,” Peterson said. “I think, for me, it gave us purpose. There will never be a church quite like this in my lifetime.”
For more than a century, Bryan said, the church answered the needs in the community that others could not.
“We did it because no one else was doing it,” he said.
