A church at the junction of Manitou and Cañon avenues in Manitou Springs that once drew an average of just seven worshippers on a Sunday is now packed with 200 to 300 visitors every week, offering food, medical care, and mental health counseling instead of sermons. St. Andrew's permanent house of worship, built in 1905, has spent the past year and a half shedding its identity as a church and remaking itself into the Saint Andrew's Community Center.
The transformation became official in March 2025, when the Episcopal Diocese deconsecrated the building, according to KOAA News 5. The congregation had been forced to confront its own sustainability in the early 2020s, and the numbers made the case plainly: the station reports the group averaged just seven people on a Sunday and was no longer able to support either the church or the building itself.
That decline mirrors a broader national pattern. A 2024 Gallup poll cited by Wisconsin Public Radio found that roughly three in ten Americans regularly attended religious services, down from 42 percent in the early 2000s — a shift that has left congregations across the country weighing what to do with aging, half-empty buildings.
From Tent Meetings to a Deconsecrated Sanctuary
St. Andrew's congregation traces its roots back more than 150 years, with a group of worshippers first gathering on the property in a tent in the 1870s, per the station's report. The property has functioned as a central gathering place in Manitou Springs since the late 1800s, before the current 1905 structure was built.
The congregation's own founding date has been described two different ways by St. Andrew's Community Center itself. Its website states the church was founded in 1870, while a history page on the same site says the Episcopal community has been part of Manitou Springs since 1874, when its first members held meetings in a tent. The center's history page also notes that recent years brought a decline in both attendance and impact, consistent with the congregation's own assessment of its shrinking Sunday turnout.
St. Michael's Steps In With Money and a Plan
Rather than let the building sit empty or be sold off, nearby St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs envisioned a new purpose for the space, and the Colorado diocese bishop gave her permission to move forward with keeping the building open, per the station's report. Organizer Jon Numair ran listening sessions that brought together 60 to 70 community members to figure out what Manitou Springs actually wanted from the space, KOAA reports.
St. Michael's backed the project with real money. The church provided $50,000 in seed funding to launch the center, and it estimates ongoing operations will cost about $150,000 a year, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. The Gazette also reported that St. Michael's own rector said that church's membership had doubled over the prior three years, giving the congregation more capacity to take on a second project. The former church address is listed as 808 Manitou Ave.
What the Center Offers Today
Where the church once held a single weekly service, the Saint Andrew's Community Center now runs programming three days a week, up from one, the station notes. It houses a food pantry, free medical services, and mental health counseling, alongside community gathering space, shared meals, and rooms that can be booked for meetings, weddings, and small concerts.
Volunteers from multiple churches work alongside people with no church affiliation at all, according to the station's report. Elena Arana, who works at the center, said it is filled every week and is loved and needed by the people who rely on it, though she also said the center still needs community partners willing to invest and help keep it open.
For Juan Carlos Martinez, the center has been more than a service — it has become a turning point. Martinez, who was formerly unhoused and struggled with mental health issues and self-medication, has since become an advocate for the center and now lives a more stable life, per the same account. “The center and its people provided him support when he felt down,” the station reports, describing how Martinez leaned on the center during difficult stretches.
A Pattern Playing Out Beyond Colorado
Manitou Springs is not alone in watching a shrinking congregation repurpose its property. In Wisconsin, the Madison-based ministry Common Grace planned to open a community center with 26 lower-cost apartments for working families on the site of its former church, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. That congregation's old building dated to the 1950s and wasn't considered historic, but it still needed millions of dollars in maintenance, pushing leaders toward redevelopment instead of repair.
The outlet reports that Revive Community Development has advised more than 30 Wisconsin churches on similar projects, whether redeveloping existing space or converting properties into apartment buildings. In Common Grace's case, the shift appears to have energized rather than diminished the congregation: the group that once numbered about 20 people during early redevelopment conversations has since grown to around 80.
