Church has been a part of my life since before I can remember.
And since I haven’t had to move from town to town over the years, I’ve been able to attend only four churches since I was a kid.
The one I spent the most time at, and the one where I experienced the most spiritual growth, is the First United Methodist Church of Western Springs. I attended my last service there last month. Actually it was the final service for the church at 4300 Howard Ave., which started in 1888 in a parishioner’s home.
I became a member of the church — which my husband started attending while still in his mother’s womb — sometime after we moved out of the city and bought a house in the suburbs. I served the church as a Sunday school teacher, education committee member, church council chair and lay leader.
I attended countless services there, on Christmas Eves and Easters and regular Sundays. On May 19, I attended the church’s decommissioning and deconsecration service.
The congregation had been dwindling in size for years, for a variety of reasons. We remained members as long as we could, but eventually we needed to find more opportunities for Ainsley to get involved. We started splitting our time between Western Springs and our current church when Ainsley was in first grade so she could take advantage of its great youth program and children’s choir.
We continued going to church in Western Springs every other week until about four years ago, when the pastor we knew well left. The time seemed right for a clean break.
But it’s hard to have a clean break with a church (and its members) when it has been such a part of your history, when it has been the place where you’ve marked so many milestones.
My dad’s memorial service was at the church, as was my mom’s second wedding. (My wedding would have been there, too, if the sanctuary had air conditioning.) Ainsley was baptized there. The memorial services for both of my in-laws took place there. (My mom’s would have, too, had it not been for COVID.) Not long ago we attended a memorial service there for the final surviving member of a group of my in-laws’ friends who had gathered together every Friday for drinks and dinner for decades.
The irony of the decommissioning service being held on Pentecost did not escape me or others in attendance. Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and is considered the beginning of the Christian church. But the message at the deconsecration service was, in a way, also about beginnings.
The building in which I spent so many Sundays is, after all, only a building. And members of the Western Springs congregation will continue to do God’s work. Many have joined the Hinsdale United Methodist Church, with whom the church has merged. Others, like me, have found different church homes. God’s work will continue to be done, even if we can’t quite understand his plan. Lyrics from one of my favorites, “Hymn of Promise,” come to mind.
“From the past will come the future/What it holds, a mystery/Unrevealed until its season/Something God alone can see.”
— Pamela Lannom is editor of The Hinsdalean.
Readerscan email her at [email protected].
