A Yard Sale for a Church

In October, the New York Times ran an article by T.M. Brown titled “For Sale: Hundreds of Abandoned Churches. Great Prices. Need Work.” This is not the first article I’ve seen about the real estate implications of declining church membership in the U.S. 

The article features a retired couple, the Cahills, who purchased a little church building in North Carolina in 2022 in order to convert it into their home. The former congregation had dwindled to three last hangers-on, who eventually decided to sell the building. Apparently, this sort of thing is happening all over the country. One realtor in the article suggests there are something like 1100 former churches for sale in the U.S.

Some of the bigger, more urban church buildings get turned into condos (of course they do), community centers, day care centers, and the ever-popular craft brewery/art gallery/dance club combo. Imagine karaoke nights in the nave! Smaller churches get turned into Airbnbs, ecolodges (seriously), and private homes. 

I’m curious about the process of transitioning these buildings for new purposes. Imagine you buy yourself a cozy little church and you plan to turn it into your home. Where do you put bedrooms, for instance? Do you divide up the sanctuary with holy-of-holies-style curtains? Build walls? Or do you turn Sunday school rooms into bedrooms and put the huge TV and sectional sofa in the sanctuary? And what about bathrooms? Are you going to perform your daily ablutions in a two-stall ladies’ room? HVAC is almost certainly going to be a problem. Churches generally experience a long period of neglect before funds run out completely and the property gets sold. So what about that old boiler that the building committee raised money for in 1968 and never replaced? 

Obviously, most buyers do serious renovations to these old buildings, as is true for the Cahills, and these renovations ain’t cheap:

The Cahills have budgeted around $150,000 for renovations, which will include a new roof and a wall to transect the main hall to create living spaces. The primary bedroom will replace the raised altar platform, and they’ll build a loft under the timber beams to serve as a library. Mr. Cahill is repurposing the pews, some of which he’s making into headboards or using as dining room seating, and the altar, which he’s transforming into a bar. “If you think about it, it is a purpose-built table for pouring wine,” he said.

I guess he’s got a point there about using the “altar”* as a bar, but I admit I’m a little squeamish about using the Lord’s table for entertaining friends with cocktails. 

Apart from the challenge of properly deconsecrating sacred furnishings, how is one going to raise the funds for these renovations? 

Well, it occurred to me that tiny congregations with rapidly aging members are unlikely to do the kind of hustle required to clean the place out before selling, so let’s imagine that the hypothetical old church you’ve just purchased might still contain some. . .stuff. Well, fortunately for you, there is a robust trade in old church gear on Ebay. I’m not kidding. You could make bank.

For instance, you could get $15,000 for an elaborate pulpit. 

Or $724 for even a nondescript, standard-issue pulpit. 

If you’re lucky enough to buy a Catholic church, definitely sell off the fancy brass stuff. A lamp could go for $4772.11. 

Even random doo-dads could bring in cash. A pair of wall sconces—or maybe bookends?—could score you $646.75!

Obviously, there’s a brisk market for church pews—very useful, as Mr. Chaill demonstrates, for headboards and dining-room seating. 

Be sure to rummage around in that old music closet and hope you find some bell choir bells—gold mine! A full set of bells goes for eight or nine thousand. If you can supply the whole setup, you can charge $15,000!

If there’s a bell in your belfry, though, keep it. And charge people to ring it. 

Once you sell off anything of real value, you may wind up with a lot of random odds and ends. That’s where the yard sale comes in. For your convenience, I’ve priced some representative items:

• burlap banners from 1978 that say “Joy!”: 50¢ each
• choir robes in assorted sizes with satiny, triangle-shaped stoles: $10 each (or maybe $10 for whole set?)
• vintage shag carpeting chosen by the ladies’ guild in 1972: sorry, but you’re going to have to pay a trash guy to haul this away
• broken down drum kit minus the hi-hat and foot pedal: $20
• electric organ, complete with Miss Bott’s well-worn organ shoes: $10
• bean bags from youth room: $2 each
• tablecloths to fit large, circular tables, complete with coffee stains: $1 each
• plastic poinsettias, wreaths, swags, and Christmas trees: 25¢ each
• books from the last pastor’s study, such as The Prayer of Jabez or Wild at Heart: forget it, no one wants these, not even the used bookstore’s buyer
• casserole dishes never picked up after potlucks: $5 each (these are truly valuable!)
• hymnals: depends, but good luck

There. Now that the main detritus is gone, you will need something to ponder as you dust out empty closet corners and vacuum empty utility closets. So you might ponder the more metaphysical things that seem to be drifting off into the past: 

• strong denominational ties
• people who stick with the same church for generations
• a sense of cultural relevance

Oh dear. You might find some disgusting grime in your metaphysical scrubbings as well: racism and sexism ranging from virulent to subtle, a sense of smug superiority over other faith groups, self-righteousness, judgmental gossip, all forms of exclusion. You will need some powerful cleansers to scrub that stuff away. 

But for all the good things these old churches represent, all the sincere faith and caring community, I’m feeling a little melancholy. The New York Times article notes that often enough, some people who used to attend the declined-and-sold churches remain in the neighborhood and have lingering fondness for the building—understandably. They hope for buyers who will care for the place and honor its past. And indeed, the Cahills have tried to do so, and as a result have found a place of belonging in their community. Good thing, too, because Hurricane Helene promptly blew through North Carolina and flooded everything. So the little town has had to pull together to help each other. Churches, at their best, have always been hubs of mutual aid, especially in a crisis. 

In her 2008 book, The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle proposed that every five hundred years, the church has a big, metaphorical rummage sale. It was her way of talking about reformation. I believe Tickle was more right than she knew—that we are undergoing a rummage sale of historical scope (we’re due, after all). But I also believe that the church is always having rummage sales. Or we should be. Semper reformanda secundum verbum dei, right? 

The all-too-literal version of this—the selling off of old church buildings—might seem like some kind of tragic defeat. But I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s a way of reminding us that change is inevitable, sometimes you have to let go, and when the old forms seem to be crumbling, we should be asking ourselves: How is God inviting us to find again, for this moment, the essence of our calling?     

*Friendly note of correction to the author of the article: This was a United Methodist church, so they would not have an altar. They would have a table. Thank you.