In New York state, 56 properties that were used for religious purposes are listed for sale on the Cityfeet.com website — including buildings in Pulaski and Oneida

By Aaron Gifford

In Pulaski, a historic structure built in 1867 is available for purchase at $99,000.

It has high ceilings, a study and large gathering rooms.

The property includes a half-acre of land within walking distance of the village center.

In Oneida, Madison County, a three-acre property zoned for agricultural use includes a 9,084-square-foot building equipped with a spacious kitchen, offices, classrooms and an auditorium that doubles as a basketball court. It’s priced at $550,000.

These properties are not large luxury homes or former community centers.

They are churches that closed due to shrinking congregations and building maintenance expenses that exceeded operating costs for the organization’s mission.

Similar properties, regardless of religious denomination, are for sale across New York, including a monastery in Westchester County, a Catholic cathedral in Albany, a Jehovah’s Witnesses kingdom hall in Queens, a Jewish synagogue in Massapequa, Long Island and a number of old wooden country chapels across rural regions of Western New York, the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks.

These types of real estate listings are expected to increase across the Empire State and the nation as fewer Americans go to church. Attendance had already been decreasing steadily for more than a half-century before the pandemic accelerated the decline into freefall.

Lifeway Research reported that while 3,000 new Protestant churches opened in 2019, 4,500 churches closed.

In a 2022 study, the University of Chicago reported that 67% of respondents noted attending church at least once in a 12-month period, compared to 75% in 2019.

A Gallup Research Poll found that after the pandemic, for the first time in the nation’s history, less than half of the U.S. population were members of a church and the median congregation size decreased from 137 in 2000 to 65 in 2021.

The National Council of Churches forecasts that about 100,000 of the nation’s approximate 400,000 places of worship will close within the next five years.

In New York state, 56 properties that were used for religious purposes are listed for sale on the Cityfeet.com website.

The cheapest is the Pulaski Church, located at 27 Church St., while the most expensive is the Church of Nazarene Mirror Lake Retreat Center in the town of Milan, priced at $11 million. The 216-acre property in the Hudson Valley wilderness includes cabins, indoor volleyball courts, pavilions, soccer fields, a recreation room and a luxury home.

New York State Council of Churches Chaplain Certification Coordinator Jim Ketcham outlined why church membership is at a record low right now and a handful of things congregations can do to survive in this new era of faith.

With an aging population across Central New York and most other Upstate New York communities, the core group of the most dedicated members and volunteers for social and fundraising events is approaching 80 or older, he said.

“They are just not able to do what they used to do before,” he said.

Secondly, Ketcham added, most churches were built in the 1800s or early 1900s when congregations were at least three times larger. Generations later, the cost of repairing and maintaining those structures greatly exceeds program costs and overshadows the church’s original purpose.

“It’s an across-the-board concern,” he said. “It’s become such a burden on the church budget.”

It isn’t easy to get more families to attend Sunday morning services at a time when there are so many competing priorities, including youth sports, not to mention screen time forms of entertainment that younger people grow up with. Livestreamed sermons and Bible studies ushered in during the COVID-19 pandemic provide popular mediums and provide a glimmer of hope that faith-based institutions can remain viable if they continue to find creative ways to serve people of all ages, Ketcham said.

“It’s a difficult cause. There’s no longer the expectation that families will go to church together. That died in 1965,” he said, adding that the construction of new churches slowed down significantly after the 1920s. “Change the music; grow your youth groups — nobody is buying that. We have to ask ourselves: Why aren’t we where the people are? We have to get out of the buildings and go where the needs are.”

With fewer folks going to church services, Ketcham said, congregations should focus more on outreach efforts, like staffing local food pantries or baby banks (formula, clothing, toys and diapers).

“But if you are doing these things to increase membership, stop now,” he said. “The point is to find a need and meet it.”

State and federal preservation grants are available to help with church renovation costs, but the process is highly competitive and not an attractive option to many congregations because those programs have strict requirements for maintaining historical integrity where upkeep and maintenance tasks are cost prohibitive, Ketcham said.

“The issues are so complex and the chances of success are so small,” he said.

Working together

Some churches across the state have been converted into apartments, trendy restaurants or microbreweries.

A few examples also show congregations partnering with other agencies to sell or lease the building while maintaining a space for continued church programs. This arrangement could work where there’s a strong demand for office space, Ketcham said.

Religious organizations across the nation, meanwhile, are increasingly merging or consolidating operations to maintain services and worship opportunities without incurring further debt over building maintenance costs. Ketcham noted an example in rural Minnesota where five churches, all of them different protestant denominations, combined services into one building and eventually offered joint Sunday sermons.

“Congregations have a history of working together, especially with food pantries and shelters,” he said. “People can be very creative when they are forced to work together.”

In Indianapolis, the Episcopal bishop was awarded a $1 million grant to research 82 churches across Indiana that have closed or are at risk of closing within a few years. The goal is to determine how those properties or at least their real estate values, could better serve the community. Religious organization leaders across the country will be watching closely.

Shelby Winchell, communications director of the Upper New York Conference of the United Methodist Church, based in Liverpool, said the UMC is implementing several creative measures to keep churches open and revitalize congregations. These include outreach measures in cafes, theaters and other public spaces to engage folks who would not attend traditional church services.

There is also room for growth in diverse ethnic communities “to meet the spiritual needs of the changing demographics of our region,” Winchell said, adding that UMC maintains a safe sanctuaries policy for protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse.

“This commitment to safety helps build trust within the community and encourages participation in church activities,” she said.

Local and state governments need to realize the vital role churches play in communities and in supplementing public social services. Winchell explained that churches provide meeting spaces for groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, host Red Cross blood drives and serve as voting locations.

“Churches offer much more than just a place to worship,” she said. “They serve as staples in the community, a safe place to gather and vital anchors for social and spiritual support.”

Winchell said church and congregation leaders need to be trained in grant writing so they can secure public funds for structural repairs, energy efficiency upgrades and other capital projects. Improvements in technology are equally important for places of faith to broaden their reach. Free Wi-Fi services would be a tremendous benefit to churches and the communities they serve.

“Like many Americans, some congregational leaders don’t have the expertise when it comes to implementing this new technology and feel lost or uncertain,” Winchell said. “Many churches don’t even have the ability to connect to the internet due to their remoteness, resulting in dwindling attendance and outreach.”

Six churches sold

Don Minichino, director of commercial property sales for Keller Williams Realty Partners in the Hudson Valley, said he has sold six churches in the past four years. He’s currently listing one in Hyde Park for $1.2 million. Religious properties in the New York City area or trendier areas in small cities across the state are often snapped up quickly by developers looking to convert the buildings into apartments or restaurants. With smaller, less-expensive properties in less urban settings, he said, there have been cases where families converted the buildings into homes.

“It’s an open living concept,” he said.

Denominal organizations with multiple churches, facing declining membership, will often sell their most expensive properties and consolidate to smaller or less elaborate locations, using the sale revenues to maintain operating costs, Minichino added. In recent years, several religious properties were purchased by other congregations representing different denominations.

“I’ve seen Christian congregations buy temples. I’ve seen Buddhists buy old Catholic churches,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter what the building looks like. It’s more about if it [building] can fit a lot of people.”