The United Methodist Church is in the midst of a moral crisis, with many congregations disaffiliating in protest of the broader organization’s decision to include LGBTQ+ ministers and congregants. In addition to the church’s struggle against disaffiliation, the average congregant is 57 or older, and the church is struggling to reach younger audiences.
A year ago, Eugene’s own Trinity United Methodist Church, a 74-year-old institution, was abruptly closed. Two nearby Methodist churches were closed in the years prior. All three churches were closed by the same pastoral duo.
Congregants tell Eugene Weekly that they’re pleased the Lavender Network, Eugene’s premiere queer resource network, is using the space now, but they don’t understand how the church got to a place where it had to close in the first place.
Despite the United Methodist Church’s spotty history with LGBTQ+ people, Trinity pushed itself to be a bright spot in Eugene’s queer community. In 2017, Trinity had voted to become a Reconciling Ministry, one devoted to providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ Methodists. Congregants also often participated in Eugene Pride to counter religious protesters.
Back on Nov. 19, 2023, Trinity parishioners gathered, expecting guest pastor June Fothergill to lead the Sunday service. However, Fothergill was told two days before not to attend, she said.
In her place, Rev. John Tucker, then Crater Lake District superintendent, stood in the recently renovated church building. The pulpit was bathed in rainbow light as he announced that the church was closed, effective immediately. “At a future time, we may hold a celebration of life worship service where the history of this church can be memorialized and celebrated,” he said. “Time and behavior will tell us if such a service is possible.”
Trinity’s pastoral leaders, Deena Wolfe, 56, and Teri Watanabe, 52, were notably absent.
Joy Knutson, 84, had been a congregant for over two decades. She was in attendance that Nov. 19 day, she told EW in a March 2024 interview, and she was appalled by what the Methodist officials had done.
“It’s not a kind thing to do to elderly people who are on their last days, to lose their church and church family,” Knutson said. Of Tucker, she said, “He’s got to face God for it eventually.”
Two days after the church was closed, Rebecca Wetmore-Cook, Trinity’s administrative assistant and lay leader, received her final paycheck and a notice that she was “no longer authorized to enter the building.” The notice said she’d been terminated as of Nov. 17, 2023. “I thought I still had a job until the night that they closed us,” Wetmore-Cook said.
Wetmore-Cook, 41, and her family had been Trinity members for over five years.
The Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMOI) issued a statement Nov. 20, 2023, that mirrored Tucker’s closure announcement. A few weeks later, on Dec. 7, Kristen Caldwell, UMOI’s communications associate, updated the statement in response to the “rumors and harmful statements about the pastoral leadership of the church.”
“When a congregation cannot have conversations about the future without vilifying and attacking those who lead that conversation,” Caldwell tells EW, “it makes [standard closure] impossible.”
But records and interviews show conference officials knew Trinity was doomed when they assigned Wolfe as pastor in 2021. Not long after her arrival, one source said, Wolfe confided to parishioners that UMOI intended to close Trinity. That admission came before Wolfe proposed the $90,000-plus kitchen renovation.
A representative from Yujin Gakuen Public Japanese Immersion School was brought in to speak to the Trinity congregation about the school’s need for a space at the same time Wolfe and Watanabe asked parishioners how they’d feel about selling the building.
Wolfe and Watanabe were also deployed by Methodist officials to other churches that, soon after their arrival, faced closure or sale.
Wolfe wrote in an email to EW that she has “done nothing wrong and as such have nothing to defend” when she was asked to comment. Watanabe declined EW’s interview request.
The broader United Methodist Church is constructed of areas, conferences, districts and churches. The three churches Wolfe and Watanabe closed belonged to the Crater Lake District of UMOI.
The first church Wolfe and Watanabe were involved with closing was Monroe United Methodist Church, 25 miles north of Eugene. There, Wolfe was a lay supply pastor, someone who fulfills some but not all pastoral duties, and Watanabe was a lay person, a liaison between parishioners and pastor. In 2018, the church began talking about its future.
“We as a group talked about how we could leave a legacy to the community,” said Donna Dillard, a Monroe congregant. Dillard said that Watanabe led visioning sessions as the congregation’s numbers dwindled.
Janeece Cook, director of the South Benton Food Pantry, said she was contacted by Monroe leadership and asked to present a plan to the parishioners during a Sunday service. “There was some longer-term members that were not as receptive to the possibility of the food pantry taking over,” Cook said, “but in all reality the mission of the church is still the mission of how I do things.”
Cook said Watanabe acted as a liaison between the parishioners, the UMOI and the food pantry.
The sale of the Monroe church building, now called Heritage Hall, was finalized Nov. 15, 2022, with the food pantry paying UMC $250,000, Cook said. The congregation held a celebration of sale ceremony Nov. 20, 2022, and South Benton Food Pantry tore out the kitchen the day after Thanksgiving to rebuild it anew, Cook said.
The congregation “contributed to the renewal of the kitchen,” Cook said. “Financially.”
Cook said the Monroe congregation contributed between $30,000 and $60,000 for a commercial-grade kitchen upgrade, and that donations “happened prior to the sale.” She said Watanabe was “instrumental” in facilitating the collection of funds.
The Monroe congregation was never dissolved by UMOI, and the few remaining parishioners still meet at Heritage Hall on Sundays, Dillard said. The building is also home to events, a free “thrift” store and other community programs.
Wolfe and Watanabe served Valley United Methodist Church in Veneta at the same time they were helping close Monroe.
Chris Rider, Valley’s head of finance, joined the church 13 years before its closure. Conversation about closing the church began in late 2020 when the budget took a dive. Outreach programs weren’t working, Rider said, and there was “no hope” for the church to continue. She said Wolfe and Watanabe handled the closure with care.
Rider said Watanabe was involved in the sale to Fernridge Faith Center, a sect of the evangelist Foursquare Church, but the building wasn’t renovated prior to its closure.
In a UMOI article about the closure, Wolfe cites the Holy Spirit as guiding the congregation towards its end, just as she cited the Holy Spirit as urging Trinity to renovate its kitchen.
Trinity, located at 440 Maxwell Road, was built on the two-acre property in 1958. With the church building’s eye-catching A-frame roof and on-site parsonage, the property’s real market value is a little over $3 million.
Wolfe was appointed to Trinity on July 1, 2021, and Wetmore-Cook said Wolfe let on early what the conference’s plan was for Trinity. “She cried in front of a few of us and said, ‘Tucker sent me here to close you like the other churches, but I don’t have the heart to do it,’” Wetmore-Cook said. “‘I’m gonna help you stay open.’”
Watanabe started attending Trinity services shortly thereafter, and while Wetmore-Cook had known about Wolfe and Watanabe’s history of church closures, other congregants had not. “We did not know that they knew each other,” said LeAnn Walker, a Trinity congregant since 2009.
Watanabe began leading services alongside Wolfe in August 2021, and parishioners described her early messages as loving and kind.
Laura Thurston, 76, joined Trinity in 2008 and said she had originally looked forward to what Wolfe and Watanabe would bring to the church. “I was impressed with [Watanabe] at first because she was just full of the Spirit,” Thurston said. “Then I found out what her spirit was full of.”
UMC describes Spirit as “God’s present activity in our midst,” but congregants say Wolfe and Watanabe often used Spirit to justify decisions they’d make on behalf of the church.
Trinity formed an “Innovation Team” shortly after Wolfe’s arrival “to help us discern, through Spirit, the future of Trinity,” and the members were announced in the December 2021 Trinity Tidings, the church’s newsletter. Wolfe, Watanabe and Wetmore-Cook were all members, and Wetmore-Cook said Watanabe started pushing for a kitchen renovation early.
Wolfe and Watanabe claimed that the kitchen renovation would benefit the Egan Warming Center, a Eugene-Springfield program that provides food and shelter for the unhoused when the temperature is projected to drop below 30 degrees overnight.
However, Egan Director Tim Black said a commercial kitchen would be unnecessary, as the program changed its food preparation policy following the pandemic.
The kitchen renovation was announced in the same Trinity Tidings as the Innovation Team. Congregants say that Wolfe cited the Holy Spirit as calling for the renovation from the pulpit, and pledge cards were handed out after services.
Wetmore-Cook said that Wolfe wanted the congregation to have “buy-in” on the kitchen. Despite the church having nearly $600,000 in endowment funds, the congregation was asked to pay for half of the renovation. Walker, 86, said that Wolfe talked the hesitant congregation into the expensive remodel through promises that the church would rent out the space to the community.
Cynthia Hurenkamp, 62, was also a member of Trinity’s Innovation Team. She said she disagreed with Wolfe and Watanabe’s idea to have parishioners pay for half of the renovation. “I was shocked that they were taking [money] from these people. Most of them are senior, they’re aged, they’re rooted deeply in tradition,” Hurenkamp said. “They don’t have an extra penny.”
Between March 13, 2022, and March 5, 2023, the congregation made 40 contributions to the renovation fund for a total of $40,979. According to Wetmore-Cook, Wolfe and Watanabe pressured the Trinity Board of Trustees into releasing the remaining funds — $55,600 — from the church’s endowment.
Donations ranged from $20 to more than $11,000. Knutson contributed $200 from cash she’d put aside for dentures. She’d saved $15 a week from her Social Security checks for over a year, and she gave 20 percent of what she’d saved. “I have to wonder if there’s some financial advantage for them to take the church,” Knutson told EW June 3, 2024.
Walker donated $30 to the renovation, but every dollar matters, she said. “I don’t have very much money,” Walker said. “That’s a lot for me.”
The kitchen renovation cost the church more than $97,000, according to a copy of Trinity’s financial records. As the renovation got underway, questions of the church’s future arose.
Although Watanabe was officially appointed as Trinity’s outreach coordinator on Dec. 1, 2022, she introduced herself in that month’s Trinity Tidings as “a transition consultant for churches who are discerning a call from Spirit to alternate paths.”
Wetmore-Cook said Watanabe was paid through Trinity’s endowment funds, as her role was meant to help the church grow. Instead, the church closed.
In September 2023, Wolfe and Watanabe asked the 111-member Trinity congregation to fill out a survey about the future of the church and its building. The findings were presented at a town hall meeting Sept. 17, 2023.
The town hall meeting was held in preparation for the church’s Nov. 26 Charge Conference, an accountability session between the congregation, pastoral leadership and Tucker, the former Crater Lake District superintendent. After presenting the survey findings, Watanabe invited a teacher from Yujin Gakuen to talk about how the school was seeking a permanent home. The school has since been relocated to Willard Elementary School.
Although neither Watanabe nor the teacher said Eugene School District 4J intended to buy the church building, the combination of the survey and the presentation made the intent clear, Wetmore-Cook said.
Thurston wrote in a letter to Trinity leadership that “most of the congregation is over 70, but to some this church is their only outside connection.” Thurston wrote, “Despite what is being said, I do not believe we will have much say in what happens, and I seriously doubt that we will be allowed to continue to worship in the building.”
Thurston read her letter aloud to a leadership meeting Sept. 29, 2023, and said that Wolfe called her “un-Christian” in response. Walker and Wetmore-Cook both say they have heard Wolfe call congregants “un-Christian” before.
Watanabe told the congregation at the town hall meeting that she had been contacted by Eugene 4J a week before the meeting but that there was no current plan to sell the building. Watanabe clarified in the October 2023 Trinity Tidings that it was then-Eugene 4J Chief of Staff Jenna McCulley who had reached out to her.
McCulley, however, told EW she was brought in to investigate if the building would be a realistic option for Yujin Gakuen following the Sept. 17 presentation, but “reality quickly became clear” that the space was not large enough to meet the school’s needs, she said.
On Oct. 13, 2023, SaveTrinityEugene.org was anonymously created, asking members of the community to show support for Trinity by attending services and asking the pastoral team not to sell.
Trinity had a second town hall scheduled for that Oct. 15 to discuss the church’s future, but Wetmore-Cook said Wolfe and Watanabe spoke about the website rather than about the sale of church property during the meeting.
In response to the website’s creation, Watanabe wrote a letter for the November 2023 Trinity Tidings. “To date, no entity within the community, including the 4J School District, ever approached the church with an offer to buy the building or property,” Watanabe wrote.
The conversation about closing carried on in leadership meetings. The way Watanabe and Wolfe spoke about the possibility of the church closing made it seem like a done deal, Wetmore-Cook said. “I don’t think this is gonna be a soft landing [for Trinity],” Wolfe said to Wetmore-Cook in a recorded meeting on Oct. 31, 2023.
Wolfe cleared her office on Nov. 10, 2023, Wetmore-Cook said, and refused to explain why.
Wolfe and Watanabe were not in attendance on the day of the closure.
Hurenkamp said she left Trinity in February 2023, but kept in contact with members of Trinity after her departure; she said she was upset by the way Wolfe and Watanabe behaved. “It was clear the pastors who claimed a hostile workplace were not the ones who had anything to fear,” Hurenkamp said, “only the congregation and their traditions.”
Ebbert Memorial United Methodist Church in Springfield announced Watanabe as the church’s newest member in the April 2024 edition of The Ebbert Contact, the church’s newsletter. The next month, the church announced the creation of a renovation team. Watanabe, while just a member at Ebbert Memorial, is on the UMOI Board of Ordained Ministry.
Ebbert Memorial leadership declined to comment.
Trinity was dissolved by UMOI at the 2024 Annual Conference. UMOI’s communications associate Caldwell said the motion to dissolve Trinity passed with over 90 percent of the vote in the UMOI legislative assembly.
The HIV Alliance signed a lease with UMOI for use of the Trinity building on Sept. 1 and the church building now houses the LGBTQ+ community center.
Brooks McLain, HIV Alliance’s development director, says the size and versatility of the Trinity building was almost “too good to be true” for the Lavender Network, but that it all fell into place.
“The timing was serendipitous, for sure, with the closing of this church,” McLain says. “We hope to continue [Trinity’s pro-LGBTQ+] legacy here.”
“For many years Trinity recognized itself as a Reconciling Ministries congregation,” Caldwell told EW in an email about HIV Alliance’s leasing of the building. “That term carries tremendous weight in The United Methodist Church as — up until May 3, 2024 — our denomination still had rules on the books that excluded our LGBTQIA+ siblings from being fully acknowledged as the children of God that they truly are.”
The FISH Food Pantry, which provides emergency food boxes, and Egan Warming Center still use the building. The BeLonging Space, a UMOI ministry aimed towards addressing the UMC’s generations of marginalizing minority communities, has also moved into Trinity, and Ebbert Memorial has promoted their work on its website and social media.
On Nov. 3, nearly a year after Trinity was abruptly closed, the UMOI finally held its celebration of life worship service for the church. Rev. Wendy Woodworth, the current Crater Lake District superintendent, led members of the former congregation, UMOI officials and Lavender Network representatives through prayer and remembrance of the church’s ministries.
“We’re recognizing when the sun rose on Trinity United Methodist Church,” Woodworth said. “We’re recognizing the sun has set [on Trinity] and the sun is rising again to new community.”
Three former Trinity pastors — Rev. Pamela Nelson-Munson, who served Trinity from 2000 to 2010; Rev. Roberta Egli, who served Trinity from 2010 to 2017; and Rev. Daryl Blanksma, who served Trinity from 2017 to 2021 — all spoke at the celebration. Wolfe and Watanabe were not present.
Woodworth went on to officially decommission the congregation in the eyes of the UMC, saying, “We declare that it is no longer a United Methodist congregation and is now disbanded.”
Over a dozen congregants from Trinity continue to worship together at the Daneland Mobile Home Park clubhouse. Wetmore-Cook, who was ordained after the closure, preaches to the still-worshiping congregation every Sunday.
She does it for “the people. All the grandmas,” Wetmore-Cook says. “Joy Knutson and her teeth.”