Churches merge

Friday, June 27, 2003 | 11:50 a.m.

First United Methodist Church's final service begins at 10 a.m. Sunday at the church, 231 S. Third St.

On Sunday parishioners will go through the doors of the venerable First United Methodist Church across from the Clark County Courthouse for the last time. They will be saying goodbye to Las Vegas' first church, founded by pioneer John Wesley Bain 98 years ago.

First United Methodist's members will be merging with another congregation as part of a new church five miles away, and hopes are its legacy will not be forgotten.

In addition to being the site of the city's first Christian congregation, First United Methodist also was the city's first nonprofit corporation and the home of the Las Vegas Valley's first Boy Scouts of America troop. Spun off from First United Methodist were Zion United in 1917, Griffith United in the mid-1950s and Trinity, Wesley and University United in the mid-1960s -- all in suburban areas.

"We are a mother church that gave birth to five United Methodist churches in the valley. Each time we gave up membership and sold off lands to provide them the funds to operate," said the Rev. David Devine, the 30th -- and last -- pastor of First United Methodist.

But the mother church can no longer survive in downtown Las Vegas, Devine said. There's a lack of parking in the area around the church, and the congregation hasn't been replenished with young families in the surrounding neighborhoods, Devine said. First United Methodist was left with an aging membership that keeps dying-off.

"It's a very sad situation," said Milli Limley, who has been going to First United Methodist for 50 years and taught Sunday school there for 40 years. "I grew up with this church, but it has just outlived itself.

"We were active to the end, helping the community, the poor and the children. But we were so limited by what we could do because our congregation is such an aging one. Now, with the merger, we have new hope."

On July 6 First United Methodist Church and its 100 members will merge with Sunrise Mountain United Methodist Church and its 200-plus parishioners to form the Heritage United Methodist Church, at 2075 N. Lamb Blvd., just north of East Lake Mead Boulevard.

"It is sad because we will be leaving a good friend, but it is also a time of hope as this congregation becomes a part of a new family," Devine said.

The church property -- the building, offices and one-third-acre corner lot at 231 S. Third St. at Bridger Avenue -- is up for sale. The asking price is $1.5 million. The church says the property has been appraised at $2 million.

Plans are to sell that church and the one on Lamb Boulevard and use the funds to build a bigger church at a site to be determined, church officials said.

Devine will leave his flock to take an assignment at Overgaard, Ariz., in a town still reeling from last year's wildfires that destroyed many homes in that national forest community.

In turn the Rev. Laszlo Vega of Overgaard will take over the new Las Vegas congregation, as the Rev. Jim Lubach, pastor of Sunrise Mountain United Methodist, retires after 35 years in the ministry, church officials said.

Heritage seems a fitting name for the new church that will carry a colorful history that started in a tent on June 18, 1905, a month after the railroad auction that gave birth to the Las Vegas townsite.

The church moved into a $12,000 building on the site in 1908. It burned to the ground in 1922, was rebuilt in 1925 and expanded in the early 1950s. It was rebuilt a final time in the mid-1960s.

"One of the things that most interested us in going through with the merger was that Sunrise Mountain United Methodist was willing to accept all of our history as its own," said Beverly Carlino-Banta, president of the board of trustees of First United Methodist and president-elect of the board of trustees of Heritage United Methodist.

"Our options had been to stay here until we were ordered to cease and desist, to ask to be disbanded or become the first church in the conference to merge.

"Yes it is sad that we will leave this church," she said. "But the congregation will live on -- and that is what's most important."

Church officials will take to the new location a number of historical books and plaques they've accumulated. The most prized is the huge 1905 plaque commemorating the opening of First United Methodist.

As for the church building on Third Street, a couple of churches have shown some interest, but no offers have been made, Devine and Carlino-Banta said.

At its peak in the 1960s, First United Methodist had more than 1,100 members in its congregation, Devine said.

Limley taught Sunday school classes that at one time had as many as 35 children. When that program ended last year, Limley was teaching a class of one young girl.

For the past several months First United Methodist operated on its savings from land sales and money from benefactors who named the facility in their wills.

The church's closure, which will put a part-time organist and janitor out of work as well as a full-time secretary, comes at a time when it is broke but free of debt.

While First Baptist and St. John's Greek Orthodox have relocated to the western suburbs and First Methodist will close, other downtown churches are thriving and expanding, said Margo Wheeler, deputy director of the city's planning and development department and staff member for the Historical Preservation Commission.

The Mormon Church on Ninth Street, Lutheran Church at Maryland Parkway and Bridger Avenue, Joan of Arc Catholic Church on Casino Center and St. Bridget's Catholic Church on North 14th Street all are doing well, she said.

St Bridget's is set to go before the Las Vegas City Council in July with expansion plans for a 25,753-square-foot church building, Wheeler said.

"St. Bridget's and the Mormon Church have been able to maintain their young families and the Lutheran church has a school attached to it," Devine said.

Other downtown churches have come up with imaginative ways to address urban problems, Wheeler said. She said Joan of Arc officials struck a deal with the developer of a garage at Casino Center and Third Street to get free parking on Sundays.

The city of Las Vegas, which bought the old First Baptist Church on Ninth Street and is turning it into a senior center, is not interested in First United Methodist despite the strategic location in the downtown redevelopment area.

"The site of United Methodist is just too small for us to do anything with it," Wheeler said.

The church is not on the city's register or national register of historic places.

The Rev. Bob Stoeckig, vicar general of the Las Vegas Diocese of the Catholic Church, said it is sad to see any church die because "we all come on the shoulders of others before us." But the First United Methodist property is too small to interest his church, he said.

"We look for properties with 10 to 12 acres because, especially in downtown, you need adequate parking."

What the church site now will become is up to the nine members of the board of trustees, who will have to weigh an offer of cold, hard cash against the possibility that the new owner will attempt to put in a business that is not in line with their morals or beliefs.

"The trustees will have to pray for guidance and decide," Devine said. "When it was active as a church we had a number of inquiries from different types of businesses as to whether we would sell the property and we were guided by our principles and beliefs."