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BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

In a unique partnership, church, school and commerce have joined in Washington, D.C., to create a new kind of church.

The partnership has produced innovative ideas that are surprising even those who envision them, as the Baltimore-Washington Conference, Wesley Theological Seminary, Carr America, and Mt. Vernon Place and Asbury UMCs come together to craft a new way of ministering to the heart of a city.

'I don?t know of anything like it,' said the Rev. David McAllister-Wilson, president of Wesley Theological Seminary.

'We are breaking new ground,' said Bishop John R. Schol, episcopal leader of the Washington area. 'Imagination and faith have been combined with sound stewardship principles to create a ministry that will glorify God and serve the needs of a diverse and vibrant community.'

In a nutshell, explained Mt. Vernon Place?s pastor, the Rev. Donna Claycomb, the church has sold the two buildings attached to its main 1917 building to Carr America, who will build a 12-story retail and office space on the site at 900 Massachusetts Avenue, next to the Convention Center, near Chinatown in Washington, D.C.

The money made from the sale of the building will enable the church to restore its historic sanctuary, have 25,000 square-feet of office and Sunday school space in the new building, and still have several million dollars to conduct innovative ministries on the site.

Asbury UMC, a nearby African-American congregation, will also have 3,000 square-feet of meeting rooms in the building.

In addition, the agreement calls for the provision of housing for 18 students from Wesley Seminary, who will live in community and work in urban ministry at the church.

McAllister-Wilson likens the final product to a teaching hospital.

'Just as other hospitals follow the path laid by teaching hospitals, other seminaries and churches will learn from the unique model the Mount Vernon Place partners have developed. Just as teaching hospitals gather best practices in surgery and treatment, Wesley will gather the best innovations from other programs and put them into practice to help this community care for its sick members, feed the hungry and house the homeless.

Claycomb, who felt a calling to work on this project and moved to D.C. from South Carolina, where she worked as Director of Admissions for Duke University, believes it is the possibilities for ministry that make this project exceptional.

'We will be in ministry with the attorneys who work on New York Avenue and the homeless who sleep on our lawn. We will offer them all a relationship with Jesus Christ,' she said.

But it won?t be church as usual, Claycomb stressed. 'Too many people believe in God, but live as if that doesn?t influence them,' she said. 'We are seeking people who are willing to struggle to live radically, as if God is really here.'

Mount Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church South was founded in 1850. The current sanctuary was built in 1917. In the heart of the nation?s capital, the church had its heyday in the 1960s, when it had 4,541 members.Today, it has 50 to 60 members. Their average age is 82, Claycomb said.

The congregation will move out of their building in September and meet at 4 p.m. on Sundays at Asbury UMC. The new building is expected to be completed in January 2009; the renovated sanctuary will be finished before that.

McAllister-Wilson marvels at how plans, which he saw sketched on a napkin a few years ago, have grown into this impending reality.

He remembers as a student at Wesley he was seated at a dinner next to Margaret Pittman, a scientist who was a pioneer in the field of vaccinations for children and a world-renowned expert on pertussis.

Pittman, a member of Mount Vernon Place, challenged the young McAllister-Wilson by demanding to know what he and the seminary intended to do for her struggling church.

He began teaching Sunday school at the church, and still does occasionally. But Pittman?s challenge sank into his soul.

'The church was a shadow of itself when I became involved there,' McAllister-Wilson said. 'Today it is a shadow of a shadow of a shadow.'

At a conference of seminary presidents a few years ago, McAllister-Wilson visited the Chicago Temple, a United Methodist church on the Loop in downtown Chicago with a sanctuary on the first floor, offices on floors 5 through 21, and the Sky Chapel, 400-feet above the city.

The pastor issued a challenge to the president, asking how they were serving the city. It struck a chord in McAllister-Wilson, whose mother worked two blocks away at Montgomery Ward and attended the church.

'I began thinking, ?is there a possibility here??'

He contacted a developer who looked at the Mt.Vernon Place site and realized that the two back buildings could be torn down to make a high rise.

The developer sketched the plan on a napkin at the Henley Park Hotel in Washington. 'And now, three years later, it?s coming to life exactly as he drew it,' McAllister-Wilson said.

The tricky part, he continued, is not the real estate deal or the construction. The tricky thing is the ministry that will be done there.

McCallister-Wilson believes the 'critical mass' of the seminary students; the involvement of faculty from the seminary, which is less than five miles down Massachusetts Avenue; the right pastors who are now in place; the prime location and a variety of other factors will combine to create something spectacular.

He imagines the church reclaiming its role as one of the great pulpits of Methodism, while doing a tremendous amount of outreach ministry,

becoming a center for Christians in the public service sector to grow in the understanding between their faith and vocation and as a center for great art.

'Just imagine the possibilities,' he said. 'This really hasn?t been done.'

Claycomb agrees. In fact, she said, the challenge may be in claiming a clearly-defined focus. 'The possibilities are endless. The challenge is reigning in the talking and dreaming so we?ll be able to make it a reality.'