A half-hour after the worship service ended, the sanctuary at Powers Ferry United Methodist Church was packed.
On a typical Sunday, the average number of attendees at the church, located on Powers Ferry Road at the South Marietta Parkway, is only around 50 people.
On this sunny early December Sunday, more than 200 mingled, hugged and recalled their memories of a church home that for many of them extends a half-century or more.
“The energy in this place is enormous!” said the church’s senior pastor, Dr. Larisa Parker.
The worshippers included current congregation members and those who have gone elsewhere, but came back for a special occasion.
All of them were there to say goodbye.
After 65 years as a congregation, Powers Ferry United Methodist Church will be closing its doors at the end of the year.
Declining membership and financial struggles prompted the decision, as members voted 28-14 in October to shutter the church and turn the property over to the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The final worship service will be on Dec. 29, but on Sunday, a special “homecoming” celebration was arranged that included an open house and an early afternoon luncheon.
Many just wanted to linger among the pews as long as they could.
“Today was a testimony of what this church has meant to this community,” said member Angela Schneider Wilson, who’s belonged to Powers Ferry UMC most of her life.
“But society has changed,” she said. “We are a very loving congregation and we’re all going to miss this place very much.”
According to documents compiled by the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, the average worship attendance at Powers Ferry UMC has fallen steeply over the last two decades, from around 200 in the mid 1990s.
Powers Ferry UMC opened in 1954 on the eastern outskirts of Marietta, when what is now East Cobb was mostly farmland.
Now, the community around the church, made up mostly of small homes and nearby apartment and condominium complexes, has transitioned from mostly white middle-class to to include many working-class minorities.
The East Cobb area also has grown rapidly, and there are at least a dozen UMC churches within a 10-mile radius of Powers Ferry UMC.
In recent years the church began a mission to minister to nearby Brazilian, Latino and Dominican communities, including the establishment of scout troops and a revamped youth ministry.
But the Atlanta-based North Georgia Conference—the governing body for more than 800 churches—created a study group last year to examine the viability of the congregation.
Among its conclusions, which were released in March, were that too few members were carrying a heavy burden of the giving load, and that the church could not meet its financial obligations.
That included difficulty in paying the pastor’s salary, making repairs and renovations to older buildings and submitting apportionment payments to the conference.
More than 75 percent of Powers Ferry UMC members are age 40 or older, according to the report, and 51 percent are over the age of 60.
The report also concluded that between 24 and 40 “active households” are supporting most church ministries and operations, and that the top 10 givers in the congregation range in age from the 50s to the 80s.
The closure of Powers Ferry UMC comes as new research about church attendance in America shows a decline in those considering themselves religious.
“This is a sad reality for a lot of churches, and not just in the Methodist church,” said Rev. Brian Tillman, associate pastor of Ben Hill UMC in Atlanta, and a former youth pastor at Powers Ferry UMC.
“It’s like losing a member of the family.”
Tillman’s children were baptized at Powers Ferry UMC, and his time as youth pastor inspired him to get into the ministry full-time. He brought his daughters to the homecoming, and gave hugs to just about anyone (including a reporter) who got within arm’s reach.
“This is the most loving church I have ever been a part of,” said Tillman, whose other church posts have included McEachern UMC in Powder Springs. “People here have different opinions about things, but they love each other. They get along.
“This is a small church, and you’re able to have a family feel and connections. You literally know everybody.”
Dr. Henry Bohn, a retired veterinarian, is one of those longtime Powers Ferry UMC members who knows just about everybody.
He joined the church in 1969, before the community was bisected by the Loop, and recalls former pastor Fred Emery saying “that road is going to destroy this church.”
But it wasn’t until East Cobb became heavily suburbanized, several decades later, that his premonition came to pass.
“I’m very sorry to see it happen, but it’s sort of inevitable in a number of ways,” said Bohn, who’s active with the East Cobb Lions Club that has met at the church for more than three decades to prepare and deliver Meals on Wheels on Christmas.
(The church also hosted the Lions’ annual holiday pancake breakfast, which has been moved to nearby East Cobb United Methodist Church and will take place this Saturday.)
Bohn abstained on the vote to close Powers Ferry UMC, and said he’s transferring his membership to Mt. Bethel UMC, where he’s been an associate member for many years.
“There are four certainties in life,” Bohn said. “Life, death, taxes and change.”
Other Powers Ferry UMC members haven’t decided where they might be attending church in the future.
“I’ve never had to church-shop,” said Wilson. “I’m enjoying everything until we close. It will be hard to find another place like this.”
The same goes for her childhood friend, Michelle McRee, who like Wilson met her husband at Powers Ferry UMC.
A volunteer at nearby Sedalia Park Elementary School, she said the church’s current mission work has been vital “because we’re in a community that really needs it.”
That’s what makes the decision to close especially hard for her, in addition to the personal memories she holds.
During Sunday’s service, she said, “my heart was filled, and at the same time, there were tears in my eyes.”
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