FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2014
Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco selling properties, moving to share UCC church on Polk Street
SAN FRANCISCO – Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, a congregation serving the Bay Area LGBT community for 44 years, is selling its two properties on Eureka Street, and is moving its congregation to 1300 Polk Street to rent space from the First Congregational Church of San Francisco.
The MCCSF congregation’s last Sunday services at 150 Eureka St. will be Feb. 1 (at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.) and its last Wednesday Taize service is Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. The congregation voted unanimously to approve the building sale and property rental at its annual meeting in December.
The properties being sold include the pink church at 150 Eureka Street, and a four-unit residential building next door at 138-140 Eureka Street.
Discussion to sell the church building began early in 2014 when a routine engineer’s report confirmed what the congregation had long known: The 114-year-old building is simply worn out. The board, staff and congregation explored all options—including rebuilding onsite, buying another building or renting other properties—and determined that a church partnership was the most desirable and affordable option. The offer from FCCSF came in early November, after an exhaustive search by a committee led by Irene Laudeman, executive pastor.
“It will be difficult to leave 150 Eureka, but we are so excited to pursue this partnership with First Congregational,” said Rev. Robert Shively, MCCSF’s senior pastor who has been on staff since October 2013.
MCCSF, which now has 92 members, has been serving the spiritual needs of the LGBT community of San Francisco and the Bay Area since 1970, meeting first as a nomadic church, and then, in 1980, settling in at 150 Eureka after purchasing an independent Pentecostal church for $250,000.
