A year after launching an effort to rebuild membership in the face of a dramatic decline in participation, Grace Church of Boulder has decided to close at month’s end.
The church, founded in 1971 as First Baptist Church, will celebrate its final service this Sunday, May 26, said Matthew Wilson, its pastor for six years. On June 1, the church will turn over its buildings and other assets to the Treasure State Baptist Association, a regional collective of Southern Baptist Churches.
“The church has dwindled down to the point where it isn’t sustainable anymore,” Wilson said. “The members decided, after a year of evaluating, to close the church.” The decision was made, he said, with an eye to finances, but also with consideration of the spiritual value the church was creating for the Boulder community.
Over the last few years, Grace’s membership had dwindled to about 10 from 50 — a startling drop, even in the context of broadly declining church participation across the nation, that forced the congregation to a self-reckoning.
In response, Grace surveyed members of the community to better understand how it was perceived. “The main thing we got was that people have heard good things about us, but we’re viewed as a dwindling congregation and disconnected from the community,” Wilson told The Monitor last year.
The church took modest steps to address that perception, trying to engage people by creating a more open and generous presence. It hosted a series of informal Wednesday evening dinners and conversations about faith. During last year’s community garage sales, congregation members staffed a table offering free clothes. The church regularly advertised holiday services and special events.
In the end, however, attendance didn’t rebound. “With people leaving the church for various reasons,” Wilson said, closing “seemed like it was right thing to do.”
He added: “It’s a bittersweet thing. It’s sad, but it’s also exciting to think of what will happen.” In a letter announcing the closure to the community, Wilson wrote that the Treasure State Baptist Association “will be looking into using the building to plant a new church at some point down the road.”
There is no shortage of Southern Baptist churches nearby. Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention has declined by 20% since its 2006 peak, to 12.98 million in 2023, according to Lifeway Christian Resources, a Christian publisher associated with the Convention. But South Hills Baptist Church is thriving in Montana City: It attracts about 100 people each Sunday, according to Pastor Jason Smith. There also are five Baptist churches in Helena, not to mention Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church in East Helena and Park Street Baptist Church in Butte.
