by Gary Charter
On December 31, St. Bartholomew’s Church in Wichita will close as a parish, ending 62 years of ministry in Southwest Wichita. The congregation will hold its last service on December 28 followed by a reception. All are welcome to attend. It has been a wonderful journey with many ups and downs, laughs, tears, and joys.
It started in 1962, when Bishop Turner was presented with an organizational petition, signed by 44 adults, to develop an Episcopal Church in Southwest Wichita. Bishop Turner assigned Rev Edward L Barnett, an Associate Rector from St. James-Wichita, to develop the Mission. The first organizational meeting was held at the Wichita National Guard Armory on South Seneca, on Wednesday, April 3, 1963. For the next two years we held Church Services in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Works Hall (because it had air conditioning and founding member, Bill Seaton was an electrician).
In April 1964, we purchased three and one-half acres of land on 2000 Jewel Street in Southwest Wichita. Ground breaking happened at 5:30 pm on October 6, 1964 and the new Church was dedicated on May 9, 1965. An external bell tower went up in 1966 and an annex building was dedicated in 1986.
Shortly thereafter in 1987, the congregation had grown to the capacity of the Sanctuary and there was a movement to move Episcopal Churches out of neighborhoods where they were hidden, to main streets with more visibility. Father Bob Layne led the move to the large old Midway Baptist church (two building with 16,000 sq ft) at 5858 S. Broadway. Renovation began by our parishioners and the first service was Sunday, May 29th, 1988. The heavy red curtains came down and the light came in. This is where three things happened-development of a Food Ministry, launching the Clothing Ministry, and we began serving breakfast before each Sunday Church Service – as a shared meal together and for social time.
In 1992, St Bart’s joined with St Andrew’s Derby, and St Jude’s Wellington to form the Regional Ministry of the Holy Apostles. This yoking did not work as planned. With declining members and large debt on the buildings, St Bart’s closed the Broadway Church on August 11, 1996, and leased an old Auto Parts Store on South Meridian. We left without a Priest. It too required member renovation to convert it to a Store Front Church. One of our parishioners remarked on seeing the long-empty building for the first time, “I thought we had made a mistake. There were pigeon droppings everywhere, a desiccated toad on the floor, and the place smelled of parts cleaner.” The first service was August 18, 1996. The main advantage to the building was that it had a garage type sliding back door, that made ease of access to supplies for the Food and Clothing Ministries; besides there was plenty of space to hang Clothing. This would be where the Clothing Ministry would flourish. Neighbors could take the clothing they needed with reasonable limits and no questions asked. “Take only what you need and leave some for others.” We were given a large lighted sign for the street, donated by the Good People of St. James.
We were blessed with a host of generous Supply Priests to help us along the way. We had been leasing the building forever and then the unthinkable happened. We lost our lease in the fall of 2019. You get kind of comfortable after 23 years, so it was a big shock.
Luckily, our dear friend Mother Eli Montes was Rector at St John’s Wichita and they had room for us and our Clothing Ministry. Mother Liz Gomes would lead us in this part of our journey. We downsized and moved all our stuff to St. John’s. We converted a Children’s Chapel into our worship space and started up the Clothing Ministry on January 4th, 2020 – this time serving homeless neighbors. Then Covid hit and we had to close down our church service and Clothing Giveaway. We got inventive by producing church service videos and broadcasting to our people. With the rise of Zoom conferencing, we were able to have live services with our scatter members. We got through it without losing anyone.
In the fall of 2021, we felt called to return to Southwest Wichita and found Southwest Presbyterian Church on 1511 W 27th St South. Mother Liz Gomes would lead the way. They had a small, older congregation with a large facility, that had room for us to share the Sanctuary-but have our own service time, office space, and plenty of room for the Clothing Ministry. We worked out a lovely space sharing agreement. Our first service coincided with the visit of Bishop Cathleen in December 2021.
We were glad to be home, shared with our Presbyterian friends, and it was with great sadness that the Presbyterians would close their church on November 19, 2023. We worked out another sharing agreement with the Presbytery of Southern Kansas to stay in the building. Along the way, we learned that following Christ will change you, your family, your job and your community for the better, forever. We have tried to follow our scripture motto from Matthew 25:35-36 “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
With increased spousal illness and less hands to do the work, we made the decision to close our wanderings as St Bartholomew’s. We have always been blessed with family and fellowship on our journey. The two greatest things holding us back from making that difficult decision to close, were losing our Vicar, Mother Eli, and the loss of the Clothing Ministry, that had been such an integral part of our service to our neighbors. But we made the difficult decision that we would merge into St Andrew’s in Derby to lend our time and talents to supporting them. Together, we will be stronger.
835 SW Polk St.