THE BIG STORY Sunday, January 21, 2018 | magicvalley.com | SECTION E
PAT SUTPHIN TIMES-NEWS
Father Mike St. Marie gives his sermon Jan. 13 at St. Edwards Catholic Church in Twin Falls.
‘TIMES HAVE
CHANGED’ Twin Falls’ historic downtown churches try to adapt to shifting trends
T
JULIE WOOTTON-GREENER | jwootton@magicvalley.com
WIN FALLS — Back in the 1960s, Twin Falls’ downtown churches were packed on Sunday mornings. People crammed into the pews, as nothing else in town was open. If you wished to be a well-respected community member, you went to church. It was a place where people gathered for worship, social time and entertainment. Youth groups were an outlet for teenagers, before the era of social media and video games.
Today, as you drive along Shoshone Street and the surrounding area, you’ll still see five massive church buildings with ornate architecture and stained glass windows. Several of the buildings were erected nearly 100 years ago. But these days, far fewer people are attending historic downtown Twin Falls churches — with the exception of the growing St. Edward’s Catholic Church. Without wanting to compromise their core beliefs, historic churches are working to redefine how they’re serving the community. They’re opening up their massive buildings to outside groups, and trying new initiatives as their memberships dwindle and their congregations age. “Times have changed,” said Rev. Mike Hollomon with Twin Falls First United Methodist Church. “We’re figuring out new ways to do ministry in a new age.” First United Methodist, on Shoshone Street East, went through a major change four years ago. It’s now part of the United Methodist Magic Valley Ministries, a cooperative of six churches launched in summer 2013. It’s a creative way to share in paying pastors’ salaries, and to respond to the number of members and available Methodist pastors shrinking, Hollomon said. Two pastors alternate preaching locations on Sundays, and ideally, they say that number will increase to three. Back in the day, Methodists were circuit riders who traveled from community to community, Hollomon said. “We’re just tapping into that spirit again.” A 2016 Gallup poll showed 37 percent of Americans surveyed identified as Protestant, down significantly from 66 percent in 1950. But the recent trends are even starker. The number of adults nationwide who identify as Christian dropped 7.8 percentage points from 2007 to 2014, according to Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study. The number of religiously unaffiliated adults — like agnostics or atheists — increased more than 6 percentage points to 22.8 percent. Non-ChrisM 1
odist Church, and First Baptist – are a microcosm of dwindling congregations and shifting priorities across the United States.
An uncertain future
DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS
The choir sings during church Jan. 14 at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Twin Falls. tian faiths saw a 1.2 percentage point increase, up to 5.9 percent. The drop in the Christian share of the population, according to the center’s website, has been driven mainly by the declines in among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Mainline Protestants include non-Evangelical congregations affiliated with denominations such as Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist. Three of the five historic downtown churches are mainline denominations. Those three churches — First Presbyterian Church of Twin Falls, Twin Falls United Meth-
At First Christian Church, on Shoshone Street North, there were about 650 members in the 1960s and ‘70s. It had two in-house church services and for several decades, another at the Motor-Vu Drive-In. People crammed into the two-story sanctuary, which seats 350. Now, it has just 65 members, and about half of them will be in the pews on a typical Sunday. “We’re shrinking, as many older churches are,” said Richard Russell, a church elder and board president. In one room at the church, a handful of black and white photos of the church’s early days line a bookshelf. One shows a group of 112 men in a Bible study group. The congregation is “dying off,” Russell said. Within the last year, the church lost about a dozen members — some of whom were in their late 90s. But those who are left, he said, are “pretty dedicated.” First Presbyterian Church, on Fifth Avenue North, has 180 members, predominantly elderly. On a typical Sunday in the last 20 years, anywhere from 80 to 120 people have attended Sunday worship services. But for the last couple of years, it’s been on the lower end of that range. There were 500 to 800 members in the 1950s, Rev. Phil Price estimates. A lot would have to change, he said, for them to reach similar numbers again. For instance, he said the pipe organ would need to cease, and the sermons would need to be longer and more entertaining. Marty Mead, a longtime member of First Presbyterian, started attending with her husband in 1957. At the time, about 350 people attended Sunday morning worship. Please see CHURCHES, Page E2