The North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church has voted to close the Wesley Foundation student ministry house at UAB and plans to sell the house, which is near Dreamland Barbecue in Southside.
“The North Alabama Conference made the difficult decision to close the Wesley Foundation at UAB due to declining participation,” said a statement from the conference.
“The plan is to sell the current Wesley building. This closure is making way for something new to begin. Discussions are already underway to begin a Wesley Fellowship ministry to serve the students of UAB and engage college students across the Birmingham area. The proceeds from the sale of the Wesley property will help fund this new ministry with college students.”
The ministry to students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham had been operating for more than four decades. The house is located at 1408 13th Avenue South, across the street and slightly to the west from Dreamland.
“After years of struggling both in participation and finances, faithful stewardship meant making the difficult decision to suspend the ministry temporarily with plans to relaunch it as a vibrant, multi-campus, Birmingham-wide college ministry within the next two years,” said the Rev. Wade Langer, conference director of campus ministry.
“We are currently building a new leadership team with members from multiple Birmingham churches. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of the property will go back into this city-wide United Methodist collegiate ministry. We are excited about the rebirth of UAB Wesley through this incredibly exciting plan. Please look forward to more information in the coming year.”
The vote to close the UAB Wesley House comes right after the end of another United Methodist campus ministry in Birmingham, the Wesley Foundation at Birmingham-Southern College, which had been run by Birmingham-Southern College’s religious life department.
Birmingham-Southern College, which was founded by Methodists and was affiliated with the North Alabama Conference, closed last month.
The Rev. Tyler Cantrell, a former director of the UAB Wesley Foundation and former president of the board of directors who left the board in 2022, said the conference did not emphasize the student ministry enough.
“It was just so hard to get any support,” Cantrell said. “I think they just had the plan of selling the house.”
Several years ago, the ministry was thriving, he said.
“We got it up to 30, 35 (students),” Cantrell said. “At one point in time it was mostly Asian; at one point it was mostly female; we went through a time when there were multiple members of the LGBTQ-plus community living in the house. We always just did ministry.”
Cantrell is now pastor of Palmerdale Methodist Church, which disaffiliated with the United Methodist Church and is now affiliated with the Free Methodist Church.
“I did not feel led to stay in the UMC and one of the reasons was Wesley, because, for about three or four years, all I ever heard was how much money that house was worth,” Cantrell said. “I always told them that’s not fair. You’ll never buy a witness this close to the campus of UAB again.”
The North Alabama Conference, at its annual meeting May 30 to June 1 at Asbury United Methodist Church on Cahaba Valley Road in Shelby County, also voted to close seven churches that had small membership: Flat Rock United Methodist in Flat Rock; Portersville United Methodist in Collinsville; Concord United Methodist in Bridgeport; Eva United Methodist in Eva; Basham United Methodist in Hartselle; Community Church Without Walls in Birmingham; and River of Living Water Church in Jasper.
The North Alabama Conference, which suffered the loss of more than half its churches from disaffiliation the past two years, also announced that it will have to draw $2.4 million from reserves to fund its roughly $5.7 million annual budget the next two years. That will leave $7.2 million in reserves at the end of 2025.
The conference also voted to reduce the number of districts in half, from eight to four - East, West, North and Mid Central districts - with at least 65 churches in each district. The conference, which covers most of North Alabama, has about 37,874 members in 279 churches.
Most Popular Stories by Greg Garrison
- ‘Didn’t get into this business to cut grass,’ Woodfin says as Birmingham launches new home program
- Everything to know about Birmingham’s Amphitheater: Will Oak Mountain Amphitheatre close?
- ‘Voice for equality and justice’ in Birmingham civil rights movement dead at 82
- More than 2,500 pounds of catfish slide into East Lake for Birmingham fishing rodeo
- United Methodist split: Alabama Supreme Court rejects appeal by 44 churches blocked from leaving
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
