The pile of rubble where the old 1867 church in Stull stood has been the source of urban legend.

The congregation at Stull United Methodist Church, 1596 E. 250 Road, gathers for worship in the church sanctuary. As part of a yearlong 150th anniversary celebration, church members will dedicate an adjacent Faith and Friendship Center at 11 a.m. Sunday.

A Stained-glass window is shown inside Stull United Methodist Church sanctuary. The church is celebrating its 150th year with a series of events, including the opening of a Faith and Friendship Center next door to the sanctuary.

Stull United Methodist Church has opened an adjacent center, seen in background at left, called the Faith and Friendship Center.

For decades, the former home of Stull United Methodist Church was the destination of thrill seekers around northeastern Kansas, who came to the abandoned building perched above a cemetery enraptured by stories of the old church being one of the “seven gateways to Hell.”

So, first things first, the Stull United Methodist Church is not, nor ever has been, one of the seven gates to the home of Satan.

If you walk up the hill to the pile of rubble where the old 1867 church once stood and knock on a rock, the Devil will not answer the door.

However, if you walk down the hill and cross the street, you will find the gateway to a church that not only has escaped death, but is now thriving, 150 years after its first members met and 142 years since the old stone church became its first home.

Yes, Stull United Methodist Church is turning 150 this year, despite the odds, the difficulties and one persistent urban legend.

“It’s been such a presence in the county and in the community for so long … there’s some good, strong roots, but you know, there are a lot of churches that kind of disappear without notice over time,” says the church’s pastor, Andrew Mitchell. “I think that’s a real testament to just the community and their faith that they’ve been able to carry through.”

And carry through it has. The church is thriving now, with a growing membership and a new building, the Faith and Friendship Center. The center, next to the church’s 1922 building, will be dedicated at 11 a.m. Sunday as part of the church’s yearlong 150th birthday celebration.

“The building is a real testament, I think, to the vision and the commitment to the future,” Mitchell says. “It’s not that we planned to have it constructed for the 150th anniversary, but since that happened, I think it’s a real feel-good commemoration of our past, but also a good (thing) for the future as well.”

Vital signs

Ironically, Mitchell, the leader of the church on its 150th birthday, grew up thinking that the church in Stull had no birthdays left. Not that he believed any of the Halloween stories about the church, but he wasn’t sure there was anything there but the ghost of a church.

“I grew up in the Shawnee Heights area, just outside Topeka, and whenever we’d take field trips to Lawrence and athletic events and things, we’d always go down 45th Street and down Stull Road. And my perception was always that it was a dead church,” Mitchell says. “And I don’t know if part of that was the perception of the cemetery and all the lore about that.”

The first thing Mitchell did when he arrived as the church’s part-time pastor in 2006? Put off vital signs.

“Kind of knowing an outsider’s perspective, sometimes when you’re a part of the church, you don’t always realize that, so I was hoping that we could send signs of life,” Mitchell says. “And so we were able to put up a marquee sign, a playground and now this building. And now I think we’re starting to change that perception of kind of a dead church into a vibrant, living community.”

The church was never dead to Calvin Hartman. One can find his mother and father on church attendance rolls for 90 straight years.

“I began attending services in 1925, as I was carried in my mother’s arms,” Hartman says. “During my years of youth, the church provided a basic social network of support. I found much joy and fulfillment while associating with youth who pursued Christian principles and goals.”

Hartman’s long-range perspective on the church brings in a much truer scope than the satanic legends that became popular in the 1970s.

“It is my belief that the church has had a constant moral influence on the community from that day until now,” Hartman says of the church’s founding in 1859. “The community has been a much better place in which to live because of the presence and influence of the church through the years.”

Into the future

Chris Lesser, lay leader of the church, says the church’s penchant for adaptation without selling tradition down river is one factor in its longevity. When other rural churches sputtered and died, it has stayed on course and remained an important character in the area.

“I think what has helped this longevity is the family tradition that we’ve seen in church: families staying around. But I think now, especially in the last 10 years … to be a viable member of the community, we are going to have to change a little bit,” he says. “It’s not such a farming community anymore, it’s more of a suburban-type community, or becoming that more and more. And there are different folks in the community that we need to reach out to.”

With a large kitchen, meeting rooms and a big open area, it is perfectly suited for the church’s many activities, from Taco Tuesdays to pancake feeds and other fund-raisers, as well as vacation bible school and other kid-centric events.

And even for non-church members, the building can enhance the quality of life in Stull, says member Brenna Wulfkuhle.

“It’s something that had been talked about for 20-plus years off and on,” she says. “It’s been a dream of several in our congregation. It was actually a dream of my father-in-law’s. He’s no longer with us, but it was a dream that he had that we should do something like this, he just thought there was a need for this, especially in this area, in this community. There’s not really anywhere large that people can meet as a group, you have to travel a little bit farther east or west to find somewhere a group can gather and rent it.”

And with each new activity, the Stull United Methodist Church moves further away from its false association with the Devil and further toward completing its next 150 years.

“What I like about it is that even though it has changed and grown, it is still a part of the community,” Lesser says. “And as the community has changed and grown, the church has changed and grown to help meet the needs of the community.”