There’s a wideness in God’s mercy and in Western Slope Mennonite Fellowship.

The congregation meets in two locations separated by about 90 miles of Interstate 70 in western Colorado. Using a “mobile church” model that prioritizes flexibility over the relative stability of one location, the congregation serves as both a physical and online gathering place for a diffused group of Anabaptists from the Rocky Mountains to the Utah border who emphasize peace, justice and four-part harmony.

Western Slope and other congregations in Mountain States Conference of Mennonite Church USA are taking different approaches to “doing church” without owning property.

Instead of owning a building, Western Slope meets once a month in Grand Junction at a retirement center and once a month in a community center in Glenwood Springs. A monthly online gathering for study and conversation bolsters the every-other-week schedule.

“We almost have two different ­populations,” said congregational coordinator Katrina Toews. “We have a core group of 10 to 14 people who travel whether it’s in Grand Junction or Glenwood Springs, and then we have a secondary population that will come if it’s in one location or the other.”

The group got its start in a breakfast conversation at a conference assembly when a handful of people realized distance didn’t have to be a hindrance. Western Slope was accepted into Mountain States Conference membership a year ago.

“In this stage we generally feel it’s a benefit for us not to have a church building,” Toews said. “Our ability to be movable and malleable is a net ­positive right now. Our redefining of what church looks like is an opportunity for us to engage with our local community in a way that might bring us new life.

“With the current status of the [broader] decline of church numbers, we have an opportunity to build it from the ground up and keep the things that have been so positive in our Mennonite upbringing and faith and encapsulate some new elements.

“For me, I’ve had to mourn and shed what I had, because I’m sad my kids don’t necessarily have all the elements I had as a kid, like children’s choir and Wednesday night church, but the programming that we do have is very service-oriented.”

The congregation has been active in service, working with an Amish group in May to repair buildings at the Aspen Camp for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and in action, collaborating with area groups calling for a cease-fire in Palestine.

In addition to lacking a building, the congregation doesn’t have a pastor, although two former pastors are part of the group and take turns with others to preach.

Toews said Western Slope started out meeting once a month but didn’t feel there was enough togetherness.

“There’s a level of commitment you have to put in if you want to be a community,” she said. “I could see that if we could get about the 30-to-50 range of attendees we would probably go to a three-time-a-month model. I would guess out here, because the Mennonite community is so diffuse, three weeks would probably be the max for these outdoorsy types.”

But the mobile approach with multiple locations will probably continue. Property ownership is daunting for a small congregation with Colorado’s high cost of living.

“It presents itself in so many ways. Even at my kids’ school, there were a number of kids who had to leave the school midyear and move west because they couldn’t afford to stay,” said Toews, who lives in Carbondale. “There’s also a shift of people moving out of the city westward because they can telework.”

Saving, and saving again

Across the mountains to the east in Denver, Rocky Mountain Hmong Mennonite Church has been searching for a place of its own for nearly a decade.

The congregation got its start meeting at Arvada Mennonite Church in the 1990s as immigrants from refugee camps in Thailand made their way to the United States. It later rented space at a Methodist church from 2005 until the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to in-person gatherings.

Pastor Chaiya Hadtasunsern said the church has been meeting at Glennon Heights Mennonite Church on Sunday afternoons since restrictions relaxed, as it saves money and continues to seek grants. But skyrocketing property values have been a statewide phenomenon.

“We wrote our grant proposal in 2015,” he said about bolstering con­gregational fundraising with assistance from organizations like Mennonite Men. “But the bidding [for real estate] here in Colorado increases every year.”

Hadtasunsern, who has led the church for nearly 10 years, said it has about 18 families — roughly 60 adults and close to 20 children and young adults.

Families have been attracted because worship music is in the Hmong language, which they want their children to learn. But recently two or three families moved to other states, pushed out by high housing prices.

When the church started shopping for its own space, the focus was on buildings constructed to be churches. Today it is broadening the search to other kinds of properties.

“Because we share facilities with another congregation, we worship in the afternoon,” Hadtasunsern said, noting the relationship with Glennon Heights is positive, but not the ideal situation. “We don’t have any offices, or Sunday school classrooms. We have a worship team, but we don’t have a space to practice. . . .

“A lot of people in the church have moved to the north of Denver. We would like to choose our own location close to our people. It’s a big struggle. Some have to travel one to one-and-a- half hours to get to the church.”

He hopes the right property, in the right location at the right price, will show up in the next two or three years, or the congregation might have to consider what the next direction should be.

Downsizing to houses

To the south in New Mexico, Carlsbad Mennonite Church moved in a different direction two years ago when it said goodbye to property ownership and sold its building. Now it’s a house church.

The congregation and a voluntary service unit both started in 1966 as people moved to the community to work in hospitals and social services. The congregation swelled in the 1970s and 1980s to an average Sunday attendance over 90. The VS unit closed in 1985, and by 2005 average attendance was 35.

“There were 10 or 12 of us two years ago, and since then two of those have passed away,” said Dave Engle, who moved to the community from Oregon a few years ago with his wife, Marjorie, to be closer to her parents, who helped start the church. Others who remain are in their early 70s or older.

An agreement with Carlsbad Bible Church allowed the congregation to continue using the fellowship hall, where it met for worship. In the last six months it has been easier to meet in homes, so the hymnals and candles were moved out of storage as the situation evolved.

“There’s just this sense of us holding on to the end of the rope to keep some sense of fellowship and keeping the church going,” Engle said. “It would be interesting to think if we had more people if we’d want to meet in church. We can’t go back to that, because we don’t have a facility. There’s a sense of this is all we’ve got, so we have to take care of each other.”

Worship services always include music, because the core group values singing. Hymns are joined by lectionary readings with some input, along with time for sharing and congregational prayer.

There’s no pastor since Nick King moved away and his quarter-time position ended. There’s no sermon in a traditional sense, and there’s not even much of a budget. Engle said an offering continues to support four church agencies, but expenses for things like an online conferencing Zoom account are taken care of informally by individuals.

“I feared everybody would be looking to me and I’d overextend myself,” said Engle, because he has a master of divinity degree. But he works full-time and is not interested in a formal pastoral role. “The situation has pushed people who are not as well-prepared for a church leadership context into willingness to take their turn around a table or in a living room,” he said. “You get women from a very conservative background, or someone who started coming recently from no church background, and they are providing leadership on a given Sunday. . . . There are people who would never preach a sermon, but they can offer something to chew on.”