With membership dwindling and maintenance mounting, the congregation of the Baltimore area’s second-oldest Protestant church made the difficult decision to sell its longtime home.

First and St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ stands on York Road near its intersection with Regester Avenue in the desirable Stoneleigh neighborhood, known for its early 20th-century single-family homes, good schools and winding, tree-lined roads.

Neighbors may have been concerned about the church’s future after the property was listed on the market, but an industrious community member came in with a plan. Longtime Stoneleigh resident and Baltimore County native Steve McIntire purchased the church building and its parsonage from the congregation for $1.1 million, a deal the Baltimore Business Journal first reported.

McIntire aims to recoup his investment and isn’t set on turning a profit if he can get Stoneleigh and possibly some of the surrounding communities to buy in. First, he plans to split off and flip the rectory, the home next door for the church’s pastor.

Then the 50-year-old wants to sell the church itself to the community to be repurposed as a community and perhaps recreation center.

“We were thrilled to have Steve McIntire be the buyer and have a buyer interested in using the building for a community purpose,” said Emily Perl, president of the church’s governing body. “As opposed to some developer who was going to turn itself into something else entirely.”

McIntire, a semi-retired banker and one-time Republican candidate for the House of Delegates, is excited about the prospects for the church building. During a tour Wednesday, he pointed to the sanctuary’s steel floors and stained glass.

“It has good bones,” he said.

A long history

First and St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ traces its roots to the First German Reformed Church, founded in the 1750s and originally located in downtown Baltimore.

The church changed through mergers with other congregations through the years. In 1928, it moved to the new chapel in Towson’s Stoneleigh neighborhood.

In 1957, it became a United Church of Christ denomination after another merger. But the late 20th century and early 21st century have not been kind to congregation membership. Many churches have closed or consolidated with others, much like what the Archdiocese of Baltimore did in recent years.

Membership at First and St. Stephen’s is down to about 20, and it can no longer afford a pastor. Maintaining the 100-year-old church building became overwhelming, Perl said.

The Rev. Bruce Swanson, a former First and St. Stephen’s pastor, wrote a poem to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the church.

“Where do stories begin? And which story? The story of a congregation,” he wrote. “How does one tell the stories? ... By incarnation today so generations unborn may continue to tell the stories.”

The Towson community now has the chance to shape the future of this historic church’s narrative.

What’s next?

While that future is uncertain, McIntire and Perl are optimistic.

McIntire’s hopeful that the Stoneleigh Community Association and organizations from other nearby neighborhoods, like Anneslie, Rodgers Forge and Wiltondale, will band together to buy the church and repurpose the space as a community or recreational center with pickleball and basketball courts, but he’s open to any ideas.

“I’m not trying to push the community in any one direction,” he said.

The 16,000-square-foot property includes a worship space, kitchen, gathering halls and other rooms.

McIntire, who’s done some house flipping, plans to fix up and sell the parsonage as a single-family home, which would reduce the community’s cost to buy the church building to under half a million dollars, he said.

The congregation will remain worshipping there Sunday mornings and hosting Thursday evening choir practices through September, Perl said.

“Twenty of us still there making a go of it, and I would say we’re having a really good time,” she said. “We’re reinventing ourselves, and we feel free of the burden of the building.”

First and St. Stephen’s celebrated a closing service before the sale last year by reminiscing on what the building meant to the congregation — several of whom left to join other churches after McIntire bought the property.

“It’s more about what the church community means to them: their child being baptized, confirmed, a wedding or several funerals,” Perl said. “It’s really those rituals that give meaning to the building.”

In addition to the congregation, Dulaney Day Preschool, which has been operating since 1985 inside the church, will continue to lease space, McIntire said.

Seeking community input

McIntire, who’s a member of the Stoneleigh Community Association, believes the group has an opportunity to create an economically sustainable venture by purchasing the property.

“If you can stack enough leases, which come from uses like the preschool, that helps fund the operation,” he said. “If you can put a couple more things on top of that: rec league use, the congregation that meets on Sunday and pays rent, all of those uses make it more attractive for the community and more feasible for the community to go forward.”

Anna DuVal, president of the Stoneleigh Community Association, declined to comment.

“I’d prefer not to speak as it’s premature,” she wrote in an email.

DuVal will lead the association’s annual meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday inside the church to gather community input and share updates, McIntire said.

First and St. Stephen’s has been through many iterations throughout its 276-year history, Perl said. From its beginnings in the German Reform tradition, through multiple locations across Baltimore, to the modern, inclusive congregation that welcomes the LGBTQIA+ community.

The Christian humanism that leads First and St. Stephen’s — with an emphasis on social justice and community — will continue to guide them, Perl said.

“As a church we have to morph and change, and that’s what we’re doing,” she said.