Want to buy a church? Western North Dakota house of worship available for just $70,000

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GLEN ULLIN, N.D. — Sharon Shafer remembers when the First Congregational United Church of Christ building here bustled with kids during vacation bible school and how the sanctuary looked with its glittering tree and blue lights outlining the sanctuary windows during the Christmas season.

She stood at the front of the sanctuary to marry her husband, Keith, on May 25, 1974 and wept for him in the same sanctuary when cancer claimed him 26 years later.

The brick building in this western North Dakota community of 670 formed the backdrop for some of her most significant life events. “Just walking into the church and the feeling you get, it’s like home,” Shafer said.

Now Shafer must say goodbye to the place where those memories were made. As the church’s congregation dropped to fewer than 10 people, its members made the difficult decision to sell the 117-year-old building early this year.

The church has been listed on real estate sites since March and held its last services in April.

To Shafer, the loss is heartbreaking.

“I’m just thinking of the settlers that were in Glen Ullin and how hard they worked to get this church going and all the hardships they endured,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “And now just to have it closed because there isn’t anybody.”

It’s a sad but increasingly more common story. Housing consultant Rick Reinhard told Bloomberg News that up to 100,000 houses of worship across the nation — nearly one-fourth of estimated total US churches — could shutter in the coming decades.

Many factors have made it harder for traditional churches to remain solvent: the growing number of Gen-Zers with no religious affiliation, shifting demographics, skyrocketing insurance, growing costs of heating/cooling, increased competition from mega-churches and the financial pressures of maintaining large, aging buildings.

Another culprit: The Covid-induced demand for online worship.

Josh Gartner, the rancher/farmer/Century 21 Morrison Realtor who is selling the Glen Ullin property, said the pandemic affected in-person attendance even at his own parish, Sacred Heart Catholic Church — the largest church in town.

“Before COVID, it was full every Sunday,” Gartner said. “Now you can watch it online. You’d go on YouTube and it shows how many other people are watching at the bottom and it’s 18. Where’s the other hundred at?’”

So what does one do with a sprawling structure built specifically for worship/fellowship customs from another era? 

Some housing experts believe these buildings could

help ease the country’s affordable housing shortage.

Other old churches or synagogues have become brewpubs,

event venues

, music studios, art spaces, Airbnbs, inns or private residences. A few have even

opened their doors to share space with other churches.

The Glen Ullin church has plenty of positive selling points. It is located on a large corner lot with mature trees in this quiet, pretty town just 50 miles west of Bismarck.

The 4,500-square-foot building features brick walls and a foundation that’s granite-block above ground and prairie rock below-ground. Stained-glass windows grace the east, west and south sides of the building and the roof was replaced in 2010. The Sherman tank of a coal furnace was converted to gas many moons ago.

Best of all, it’s listed at just $70,000, which gives the person with a $150,000 budget room for renovations.

“You might have to put $20 or $30k into it,” Gartner said. “It depends on whether you’re satisfied with the kitchen in the basement. It depends on what you want.” 

Its sturdy walls also harbor stories of Midwestern faith and grit. Formed by a group of Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists in 1884, the congregation held services in the railroad depot until a church could be built. 

But the church burned down three years later and the insurance turned out to be worthless. Undaunted, church members paid a local man $2 a month to hold services in his house. Another church was built but, by 1906, so badly needed repairs that congregants eventually opted to build the current structure.

It was completed in 1908 by an architect named George Wilson and a mason named John Kneole, according to a church history booklet.

In 1931, the church basement was wired for electricity and in 1941, running water and sewer were installed.

In the post-war housing shortage, one pastor and his family temporarily lived in the basement of the church because no houses were available for rent.

In 1964, after funds had been raised to install stained-glass windows, Rev. John Munsey gave a poetic dedication: “In these windows are the colors of God’s world — the whites, the reds, the yellows, the blues, the greens and the golden hues. They symbolize a spectrum of life — the brighter colors of youth and the dawn; the somber hues of evening that speak of sunset, the end of day and rest.”

Yet, for all of this church’s beauty and history, it presents a few challenges too.

It’s not handicapped-accessible. There’s no garage, although there’s room on the north side to build one. The two restrooms are in the basement and there’s no shower or tub. One small section of the east wall of the basement is bulging inward. “You don’t see any sign of cracking on the outside so I don’t think that’s anything too serious in there,” Gartner said. He said another old building in town with a similar prairie-rock foundation was easily stabilized with a concrete form, and wonders if that wouldn’t also work with this wall.

In its three months on the market, the United Church of Christ building has generated plenty of interest. Since being posted on Crexio, a commercial real estate site, the building has received over 1,400 views. That compares to just 120 views for another commercial building in Glen Ullin, Gartner said.

And there have been nibbles. One woman made several offers on the property but backed out. She had wanted to make significant renovations, but eventually thought the project was too much for a single woman nearing retirement age. “I think her family kind of talked her out of it,” Shafer said.

Another potential buyer spoke of turning it into a crisis center for pregnant women but offered half of the listing price, Gartner said.

A retired pastor from a nearby community considered it for his private residence, but his wife uses a wheelchair and it doesn’t have an elevator, Gartner said.

When asked how she would like to see the place where she was confirmed and married used, Shafer isn’t sure.

Mostly, she sees people who would love the building as an answer to her prayers.

“It would be nice to see if a family could renovate it and make it into a nice home,” she said.