Closing a Church. A unique and significant Dearborn congregation doing things no other congregation was doing.

ing a Church Littlefield Avenue Presbyterian congregation has existed for 91 years.  On November 21, 2021 we closed the church building for good.  While the membership was fading, it was really the floods of 2021 that made the decision necessary.  In Presbyterian terminology, what happened is called decommissioning.  To Presbyterians a building is just a building until it is dedicated for a religious purpose.  It remains a religious space until it is decommissioned.  Then it is once again just a building.  The congregation survives, but it is now a congregation without a building, and without a clear idea of what comes next. But the purpose of this podcast is really to talk of the history of this congregation, and of the significant role it played in working with the Arab/Muslim community, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  In those decades Lebanon was being torn apart by conflict and refugee were coming to Dearborn in large numbers.  Those refugees were traumatized and disorganized and were facing serious resistance from local people.   Littlefield decided they would be allies (is that the word?).  They would support the Arab community and would help them to build their institutions.  They would try to educate the public, and would speak against injustice and hostile stereotyping. And after September 11, the importance of the congregation became even more significant. This is the story of that congregation, and what it meant to the members and to the broader community.  This is posted with great appreciation for Reverend Nancy Bass, who came in to help us decide what to do next and then found herself presiding over catastrophic damage to the building itself.  She was an indispensable person.  We could not have worked through this without her unique skills.  Update:  A friend with more experience than I have reminded me that the original name was Littlefield Boulevard Church.  It was changed to Littlefield Presbyterian Church in 1983 when the Presbyterian Church reorganized itself.