Central Lutheran Church in Portland, OR.

A “Hard but Holy” Sale:
The Transition of Portland’s Central Lutheran Church

By Emilie Haertsch

In March 2026 Partners spoke with congregational leader Janis Williams about the evolution of Central Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon. The congregation at Central Lutheran went through a years-long, thoughtful discernment process about its building and future, and recently sold the building to Portland Youth Philharmonic. Their experience could serve as a model for other congregational leaders and clergy considering transitioning their religious buildings. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Emilie Haertsch: Describe the Central Lutheran Church congregation and its history.
Janis Williams: The congregation is 100 years old and started out as a Norwegian immigrant church. One of the big upheavals in our history was switching from Norwegian- to English-language services. But we continued to honor our heritage and even continued celebrating a Christmas Day traditional Norwegian service at dawn. In more recent decades we have been devoted to social action causes such as homelessness, hunger, and Palestinian justice. We aim to be a beacon and advocate for the LGBTQ community. Our social justice mission attracted many young families into the congregation in the 2000s. 

EH: Describe the building and land your congregation occupied.
JW: The church building was built in 1949 by blue ribbon architect, Pietro Belluschi. We still have five congregants who remember walking into that new building when they were children! It’s a listed historic landmark and unusual in that it has Douglas fir siding, which is a soft wood. It caused so many problems, particularly with dry rot. 

EH: What has been your congregation’s involvement in the Portland community? What is your mission?
JW: We have always been focused on serving the community. The church holds 500 people, so it was one of the big concert and rehearsal spaces in the area. Each year from October through December, we hosted concerts every weekend. In 2010 we opened our building to utility sharing with other organizations and nonprofits and hired a building use manager and live-in custodian. Pre-COVID we had Meals on Wheels in our kitchen and an environmental group in our offices. We even hosted the local organization Piano Santa, which takes donated pianos and redistributes them to kids taking lessons.

EH: When did you start reconsidering the long-term sustainability of remaining in your building?
JW: Like many congregations, during COVID we shut down and met on Zoom. When we reopened in 2022, none of the young families came back. They had significantly contributed to the community, so it was very painful. After COVID and remote work, folks didn’t need offices anymore. Also, a lot of our musical groups disintegrated. The congregation shrunk significantly. Many older congregants died, left, or moved into distant retirement homes. We were limping along, so we looked at the dollars and cents to stay. Even without a mortgage it was $1 million per year to maintain and repair our fragile building. 

EH: How did Partners for Sacred Places become involved?
JW: In 2023, the City of Portland recommended we meet with Dana Dabek, then director of transitions services at Partners. Through that conversation, we joined Partners’ Western Oregon transitions cohort for six weeks of training. We were further along than some of the other congregations in the process, but it was helpful to be part of a group going through similar experiences. 

EH: What steps did you then take?
JW: We followed the statewide Lutheran office’s process and formed three committees: the building team, which determined what to do with the physical building, the “memory of things” workgroup, which decided what congregational belongings to part with and keep, and the visioning trust, which looked towards our congregation’s future. I was part of the building team, which in many ways was the easiest of the three. Our congregation had a meeting about the building in 2023, took a vote, and decided to sell. I’ll never forget it. 

EH: How did you decide on a buyer?
JW: We were fortunate to find an excellent realtor. In January 2024 we listed the building. A Jewish congregation was interested but they felt the building wasn’t secure enough. Two orchestras looked at it, too, but fell through. In the end we found the best possible buyer, though, in the Portland Youth Philharmonic. They are the oldest continually operating youth orchestra in the US, but they had never had their own space before. It was a perfect alignment with our congregation’s mission of serving the community and providing a space for music.

EH: How have congregants responded emotionally to the sale?
JW: There was great joy when we sold the building for $1.5 million. But we also hold a great deal of grief. We hired a grief counselor to help us through that process. 

EH: What is ahead for Central Lutheran?
JW: There are only 40 of us now, but we still exist as a congregation. Our next step will be to determine what to do with the money from the building sale. We are starting to have conversations about how best to honor our mission and serve the community. Folks have wonderful, creative ideas. We are blessed to have good work to do.

Central Lutheran Church