Members past and present say goodbye to Aurora’s first church

For Janice Harwig-Johnson, the tears started to fall as soon as the church service ended.

“It’s very sad. There are so many memories for me here,” she said, wiping her eyes.

First United Methodist Church in Aurora, the city’s first religious congregation, held its final service on Sunday, 174 years after being founded.

The church closed its doors after seeing membership decline from 876 in the 1960s to less than 30 as of Sunday.

Dozens of people gathered in the sanctuary at 60 S. Lincoln Ave. to say goodbye. Current and past members hugged, laughed and cried as they relived old memories.

“This is a sad day,” said Elizabeth Metzger, a member of the congregation for 55 years. “It’s still a bit hard to believe.”

First United Methodist was founded in 1837, with early Aurora settler Samuel McCarty as one of its original members. The church building was constructed 34 years later, in 1871.

Over the course of its 17 decades, the congregation became a beloved fixture in the lives of countless Aurora residents. Many said the church sanctuary — a striking room of dark brown wood, red carpeting and big stained-glass windows — played a role in some of their most important personal milestones.

“I got married in this church,” said Harwig-Johnson, who moved to Aurora when she was in second grade. “I had two kids baptized here. This is very emotional.”

Sunday’s special service opened with the chiming of 17 bells, one for each decade of the congregation’s existence. The Rev. David Seyller, a retired minister who said he found his religious calling while going to the church as a youngster, was one of the speakers.

Seyller attended his first service at the church during an Easter weekend in the late 1940s, when he was a boy. Like many of the people in the sanctuary Sunday, Seyller would come to experience many special moments inside the Lincoln Avenue building, including his marriage and the baptism of his daughter.

“I understand why this room feels like sacred space to so many of you,” he said.

Seyller stressed, though, that the congregation can live on in the hearts and memories of its members.

“I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together,” he said. “Stone and mortar do not make up a church — they’re just a tool.”

Church members agreed earlier this year to shut down the congregation. Metzger said membership had gotten too small to support the continued operation of the venerable church building.

She wondered if the church’s downtown location might have hurt its chances to attract new people.

“All these subdivisions went up, and then came churches that would serve those people,” Metzger said. “It seem like fewer young families now want to come to a downtown church.”

The ultimate fate of the church building is unclear. The Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church plans to take it over in the hopes that it can be used for another religious purpose.

Betty Williams and Beverly Scott — friends who were married two weeks apart inside First United Methodist Church — said they’re praying that the building remains a religious institution.

“It’s so beautiful,” Williams said, tears welling in her eyes. “There’s a wonderful spirit inside there, and that won’t ever disappear.”