New life inside church after Baptist congregation moves in
MILWAUKEE, Wis. – As the pastor first stepped inside the cavernous Milwaukee church modeled after the Roman Pantheon, he took a moment to take in the space.
“Lord,” the Rev. Francisco García Colón recalled thinking to himself, “I never asked you for something so big.”
García Colón leads a small but growing Spanish-speaking Pentecostal congregation, which bought the Milwaukee church on Highland Boulevard, earlier this month.
The congregation hopes to breathe new life into the 22,000-square foot building, most recently known as St. Luke Emanuel Missionary Baptist Church. It’s one of the last neoclassical churches still standing in Milwaukee, and its imposing design landed it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
It’s a big step up for the congregation, which got its start in 2017 with a couple of dozen people worshiping in a home basement. They will be the third congregation to call the church home.
For most of its 110 years, the building itself was largely untouched. That changed in the last year, when it sat vacant and trespassers ran roughshod over it. In 1914, the church cost its original congregation $135,000 to build – equivalent to more than $4 million today. García Colón’s congregation bought it for $10,000 less this year – $125,000 in cash.
Under stained-glass dome, peeling plaster and debris
The church’s most impressive features remain. Past Corinthian columns at the entrance, the main auditorium features rows of pews arranged in concentric arcs around a grand pulpit on a whitewashed north wall. Overhead is a dome with leaded glass.
But shortly before the sale closed, the arched walls had a shredded look from peeling plaster, which was falling into aluminum pans on the floor. A pew was covered in shattered glass. One stairwell was so damaged from falling ceiling pieces that it was impassable. Bathroom toilets and sinks were smashed.
Investor Nathan White didn’t anticipate what would happen when he bought the building last year for $200,000, according to his Realtor, Jennifer Hupke. White didn’t respond to Journal Sentinel calls and emails.
Hupke said White is a devout Christian,
and had plans to restore the Highland Boulevard church but never ended up visiting in person.
While it sat empty, thieves stripped the property for radiators and copper pipes, Hupke said. The basement flooded and then froze so it looked like an ice rink, she said. At one point last year, a homeless encampment had set up on the church playground, she said.
White began racking up fees from the city of Milwaukee, Hupke said.
Hupke said the city shares some blame for allowing crime and poverty to fester in the area. Many neighboring properties are vacant, too, which attracts trespassers and crime to the area – something White didn’t realize when he bought the building, she said.
Christian Scientists moved in during boom years
In 1914, when Christian Scientists held the first service in the building, the neighborhood was booming.
Expanded streetcar access made the west end of Milwaukee ripe for development. The area was home to many wellto-do German immigrants.
At the time, the Church of Christ, Scientist was booming too.
Milwaukee was an early outpost for the religious group, which was founded outside Boston by a woman who believed she could heal herself and others through prayer.
Christian Science amassed a large following in Milwaukee, and its congregations built churches across the city.
In 1913 a Christian Science congregation bought the lot on Highland Boulevard and North 27th Street, and enlisted renowned Milwaukee architect Carl Barkhausen to design a church. In June 1914, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist
opened.
Church, neighborhood both undergo rapid change
Once the fastest-growing religion in the United States, Christian Science waned in popularity after World War II. Improvements in medical science dampened enthusiasm for spiritual healing, scholars say.
The neighborhood surrounding Second Church of Christ, Scientist, changed, too. Many large mansions along Highland had been subdivided into rooming houses during World War II. In the 1960s, many more were razed to make way for apartment buildings.
Many of the affluent German residents had scattered, moving to the surrounding suburbs.
Across the city, Milwaukee’s Christian Scientists struggled to maintain the massive buildings they built at the turn of the century.
In November 1985, the Highland Boulevard church sold to a Baptist congregation. The structure was renamed St. Luke Emanuel Missionary Baptist Church.
By summer 1991, as the. Rev. Jesse Jackson took to the pulpit, the church once again overflowed.
“I remember it was just packed wall to wall,” said Evelyn McCrory, whose husband, the Rev. Ron McCrory, later became pastor of St. Luke, succeeding his father, the Rev. Robert McCrory.
Jackson came to Milwaukee to speak out on behalf of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims, whose remains had been discovered a few weeks earlier just blocks away.
Those victims were made vulnerable by disinvestment in Milwaukee’s central city, Jackson said.
The crowd at St. Luke’s that day was predominantly Black, as was the neighborhood. Outside, Jackson helped register people to vote, according to the Milwaukee Sentinel.
The McCrorys took pride in the building, and the congregation hosted events for the public, spotlighting the church’s history.
Maintenance was ‘one thing after another after another’
Over the years, however, the aging building became too much to maintain – it was just “one thing after another after another,” Evelyn McCrory said.
Quotes for replacing the roof alone were as high as $220,000, she said. The copper, domed roof – a distinctive, Pantheonic feature – was leaking, after being patched over a couple of times.
Despite applying for historic preservation grants, the congregation couldn’t afford all the repairs the building needed. Over the years, the St. Luke’s congregation shrank significantly.
During the pandemic, Rev. Ron McCrory began broadcasting services from home, over Facebook Live. Since then, it’s been hard to bring people back together in person, Evelyn said.
In 2023, the congregation made the difficult decision to sell. It was “heartwrenching,” Evelyn said.
Today, the congregation is looking to lease new worship space.
Damage to the vacant church is a ‘cautionary tale’
What happened in the last year at the Highland Boulevard church should be a “cautionary tale,” said Mark Elsdon, a Madison-based expert on the future of church properties.
Elsdon is the editor of the book, “Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition?” He cites research that as many as one-third of church properties nationally could close or change purpose in the next decade.
Church leaders – and cities – are often unprepared to handle those closures and ensure the buildings continue to serve their communities after the congregation leaves.
Elsdon said the problem is bigger than many realize, and that congregations and cities can do more to plan for repurposing churches before it’s too late. A church liaison in the city planning division, for instance, could help pastors looking to sell their buildings with zoning questions, redevelopment funding and more, he said.
García Colón has unshakeable faith the move, indeed the congregation’s fate, is in God’s hands and will not fail.