St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Altoona, Pennsylvania, was sold to a local contractor and property manager, but the congregation has leased back space in the sanctuary to continue worshipping there. Photo: Audrey Scanlan, via Facebook
[Episcopal News Service] Worshippers gather Sundays inside the nave at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Altoona, Pennsylvania, just like they always have, with no reason to notice anything different – despite a big change that took effect there three weeks ago.
The pews and altar are the same. The same organ accompanies the hymns. The schedule of services still alternates between Holy Eucharist and Morning Prayer, depending on the availability of supply priests. And the worshippers are mostly the same, typically about 12-15 familiar faces, some of whom have been attending St. Luke’s for many years.
What’s different is that the congregation is now a tenant instead of the owner of its building in downtown Altoona, a city of about 44,000 in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. On July 26, the congregation finalized the sale of its property to Chris Cook, a local contractor and property manager whose family businesses specialize in historic preservation. Cook, as the new owner, agreed to lease the sanctuary to St. Luke’s, as well as other facilities used for St. Luke’s food pantry, ensuring the church will remain open after years of budget tightening.
An improved financial outlook is another big change for the congregation, which hasn’t been able to afford a full-time priest in more than a decade, junior warden Woody Pyeatt told Episcopal News Service. The congregation had been drawing down its savings to cover building maintenance costs, raising concerns that the church eventually would be forced to close. The small but active congregation wasn’t ready to give up.
“We just felt like God hadn’t washed his hands of us,” Pyeatt said.
Cook’s company already was familiar with the property, after it previously was hired to complete maintenance and renovation work on the church. The cost of such improvements was a growing burden for St. Luke’s. It still owed money to the diocese for a loan that covered upgrades to make the building more accessible to people with disabilities. The congregation also was paying more than $10,000 a year for heating and other utilities, Pyeatt said.
“It was clear that one new roof or boiler replacement or something like that, and that was it. … We would be out of money,” he said.
A little more than a year ago, Cook proposed buying the property and leasing back space so the congregation could continue worshipping there. Cook envisioned turning the campus’ several buildings into a kind of community center, while renting the sanctuary to the public for weddings, banquets and other events – at times when St. Luke’s wasn’t using it for worship.
“From the beginning, this church has always had a special place in my heart,” Cook said in a July 26 Facebook post announcing his purchase was finalized. “We used the theater space as a rehearsal hall throughout High School for numerous productions,” he said, and though he isn’t a member of St. Luke’s, he recalled his family attending “multiple church services” there and “our fair share of pancake and sausage Shrove Tuesday celebrations.”
St. Luke’s continues to be a lay-led congregation for now, under an agreement with Central Pennsylvania Bishop Audrey Scanlan, who asked the congregation to commit to celebrating Holy Eucharist at least twice a month. The congregation arranges for supply priests on those Sundays, and members lead Morning Prayer on the other Sundays.
The congregation also committed to spending the next two to three years considering ways of restoring a permanent clergy position, possibly by sharing a full-time or part-time priest with one or more other Episcopal churches in the region.
The sale of the property and the new lease buys the congregation some time, Greg Williams, another junior warden, told ENS. With $140,000 in proceeds from the property sale, St. Luke’s was able to pay off its loan with the diocese and use the rest to bolster its savings. The congregation now pays $800 a month for the space it uses, which also covers utilities.
“This gives us more breathing space, more time to see if we can figure out new possibilities, new approaches, and we’re exploring those pretty ferociously,” Williams said. The lay leadership model has “kind of blossomed” in the interim, he said, though “having a pastor would be a wonderful thing.”
St. Luke’s already is partnering with Holy Trinity Episcopal Church about 15 minutes south in Hollidaysburg through a diocesan initiative called Shaped by Faith. The two churches received a grant to collaborate on joint events and ministries. The partnership isn’t related to clergy leadership at this point, though Pyeatt and Williams said the experience may open doors for exploring other collaborative models.
The St. Luke’s property sale also is an opportunity to put the church’s facilities to fuller use. Under Cook’s new ownership, he has named the campus the St. Luke’s Cultural Center and established it as the headquarters of a newly formed nonprofit, the Cooks Family Foundation. A Head Start program, one of the first new tenants on the property, is preparing to move into classroom space for the fall semester. Other facilities available for rent include the parish hall, a gymnasium, a kitchen and the former rectory, the oldest brick house in Altoona, which dates to the 1850s shortly after the congregation was founded. The sanctuary was built in the 1880s, and the parish hall was completed in 1917.
“We are beyond grateful for the opportunity and promise to uphold this beautiful building complex while upgrading it and making it even more user-friendly and inviting all while keeping the integrity of the historic building,” Cook said in his announcement.
The congregation’s lease also underscores the importance of its feeding ministry. By maintaining storage space for the food pantry, it will continue to be able to serve about 100 families a month. The ministry is supported by dozens of volunteers, some of whom are nonmembers with no other connection to St. Luke’s than their service to the food pantry.
“I would say it’s essential,” Pyeatt said, both as an outreach activity for members and as an example of this small congregation’s outsized impact in its community.
– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.