Condemned building forces South Bluff UMC to close

By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
A 91-year-old Corpus Christi congregation gathered for the last time Oct. 15 after its building was condemned.
But a small part of South Bluff UMC, Corpus Christi, is still fighting to live.
Ralph Morales, who served the 113-member congregation as a lay pastor, is resolutely pressing on with the Hispanic community members he drew to South Bluff.
The church had 30 to 40 Hispanic members, said longtime member Jim Kidwell.
Morales had just begun to bridge the gap between the church and the Hispanic neighbors around it when the building was condemned, Kidwell said.
“It’s sad because we were making some inroads into the community,” Kidwell said. “We had a great ministry there. We were starting to be accepted into the neighborhood.”
Corpus Christi Superintendent Barbara J. Ruth acknowledged that South Bluff was reaching out to the neighborhood.
“They tried every week to have some activities, and they had a bilingual service there on weeknights,” she said. “Those were not as successful before Ralph Morales came.”
South Bluff began in 1915, when Corpus Christi started growing south and west from the bay. People desired a church closer to their homes than First UMC downtown.
First UMC organized a Sunday school mission in the South Bluff neighborhood. The Rev. V.V. Boone was appointed first pastor of the new congregation. By 1959 South Bluff had grown to 1,177 members.
Over the years, members ignored signs of deterioration around the building, Ruth said. That deterioration ultimately led to the church’s disbanding.
“It closed because it was a dangerous facility,” Ruth said. “The congregation had faithfully continued to meet in this building. The building was really important to them. But as they aged considerably, the damage continued, and they just didn’t see the neglect.
“They did the best they could.”
Work to make the building safe again would cost an estimated $1.5 million, Ruth said. Members would have been without a building for at least a year.
Kidwell said his wife, Doris, began attending the church when she was 9. South Bluff is the only church to which she’d ever belonged. He started coming when he was 13.
Many members felt as if a family member had died when the church disbanded, Kidwell said.
Throughout the years South Bluff produced many significant people, Ruth said.
“There are lots of people who went to that church and are now scattered all over the conference,” she said.
Kidwell agreed.
“It’s got a lot of roots,” he said. “Many people have connections to South Bluff.”
Those include, Kidwell said, the Rev. Tom Deviney, senior pastor of Bethany UMC, Austin, and the Rev. Mickey McCandless, pastor of Bracken UMC, Garden Ridge.
Former South Bluff members are deciding where to go from here, Kidwell said. He and his wife have not yet picked another congregation.
The church has paid Morales’ salary and taken care of his housing until the end of the year, Ruth said. She isn’t sure where he’ll go in the future.
She said she didn’t know if another church would ever sit in the area where South Bluff was.
There is a piece of property across the street from the condemned building, but Ruth said she didn’t believe it was big enough for a church building.
“We don’t want to desert the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s a big problem and a huge question.”
Kidwell said he didn’t see another Methodist church coming.
“There might be a nondenominational church that comes there because they don’t have all the ‘overhead,’” he said. “But we lost our financial base when we disbanded.”
South Bluff serves as a real warning to many other churches in her district, Ruth said.
“I do have some places where they have neglected their space, and it’s scary,” she said.