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Located in Crawford County, this small rural congregation began to notice two things: one, more young families were visiting worship services, and two, those young families and older congregation members were not attending services when there was inclement weather. Some did not attend church throughout the entire winter. After making inquires, the pastor discovered it wasn’t the weather keeping people away but the church's bathroom facilities. The only bathroom was actually an outhouse several yards away from the church itself. In this case in-door plumbing was an evangelism tool as well as a modernization project. Sligo approached the Gateway Board for a grant of $15,000 to enable them to hire a professional service to establish the septic system and connect it to the building. The congregation was then able to provide the labor, and using materials also purchased with the grant, to complete the conversion of a storeroom into a bathroom that is completely accessible. Since that time, the attendance at Sligo has stabilized and even grown.
Creating the new with in the old
New Spirit/Shaw Ave.
In 1998 the Shaw Ave. congregation came to the decision that if they were going to properly serve their South St. Louis neighborhood they were going to need help. Established in late 19th century, the community in which the congregation served had changed markedly and the congregation felt it was not only too small to provide good ministry, they realized they were out of touch with their neighbors. In a cooperative venture with Union Memorial UMC in North St. Louis, a Saturday morning children’s ministry was begun with one pastoral couple, one boom box and 2 neighborhood children. The Gateway Board contributed pastoral salary and ministry development funds for 6 years. That tentative outreach is now New Spirit, a United Methodist Faith Community. Over 100 people worship on Sunday morning and in mid-week services. New and exciting ministries developed by and for the community are in place. New disciples are coming to Christ! The Shaw Ave. congregation continues to worship alongside New Spirit, confident that the United Methodist Church will continue to serve the neighborhood for another 100 years.
Creative Outreach
Kingdom House’s Brass Band
In the first half of the 20th century, Kingdom House was directly funded and managed by the Gateway Board, known at that time as the St. Louis Mission and Church Extension Society. In 1905, Kingdom House’s executive director came to the board of directors with an unusual request: funds to buy instruments for a boys’ brass band. Parents, many of them immigrants, worked long hours in this time before day care centers and latch key programs. Children, mostly boys, ran the streets unsupervised and more often than not, in trouble. Kingdom House decided to follow the lead of the Salvation Army and provide these boys with instruments and lessons, giving them a creative outlet and supervised time with people who cared. The Board granted Kingdom House $300 dollars and a band was born.
Into the 21st Century
College, Bethel(Wildwood) and St. Luke’s
These three congregations are just the most recent to receive funding from the Gateway Board enabling them to acquire the technology needed to create new forms of worship. Church-goers today are media and technologically savvy. They expect the same of their church. As churches develop new worship services, they are discovering the high cost of computerized visuals, proper lighting, sound equipment, praise band instruments and trained personnel. Grants and loans provided by the Gateway Board have enabled these churches and others to fully incorporate modern technology into worship and reach a whole new generation of seekers, bringing them into relationship with Christ.