Under a storm of controversy that no one is talking about much publicly, a piece of South Whidbey history has closed its doors.

Known for years as the “Little Brown Church,” the Clinton landmark is for sale, and along with it are a number of broken hearts.

For almost 100 years, the Little Brown Church has been a spiritual home to scores of South Enders who embrace the Free Methodist Christian denomination.

Now the church on Maxwelton Road is vacant, and its congregation is without a place to worship or a pastor to lead them.

The final Sunday service was June 4.

The church and property has since been listed for sale; asking price for the church and the parsonage is $600,000.

The small congregation of 65 or so, mostly retired South End residents, is adrift.

Not only are they without a building, the denomination’s hierarchy is not sending anyone to replace the pastor, who resigned under a cloud of dissension.

For now, the congregation from the Little Brown Church travels off island to attend a Free Methodist Church in Seattle, Everett or Marysville.

The upheaval came to a head when Pastor Neil Jolin resigned his post in April. Some say the problems seem to have stemmed from a clash of personalities.

“There were some difficulties in the church. Things weren’t going well,”

Jolin said, declining to give details.

“Subsequent to my resignation, the conference made a decision to close the church and to sell the property,” he added.

Jolin, with the local church board, asked the Pacific Northwest Conference of Free Methodists, the body that oversees the churches in the region, to shut down the Maxwelton church.

The decision to close was not an easy one, said Matt Whitehead, who heads the Pacific Northwest Conference of Free Methodists.

“It’s a heartbreak for a lot of people on both sides of the issue,” Whitehead said.

“It was a very complex decision. We thought a lot about it before making the decision to close the church,” he said.

“There were some internal issues of concern. It was the best decision in light of all the factors,” Whitehead said, alluding to the conflict between the board and pastor and some of the parishioners.

“We also had some concerns about sending another pastor to the church,” he said.

Whitehead also did not want to go into specifics. He said he did not want to air the details of the disagreement in public.

The closure comes after the church launched a series of events last year to attract more members. The church was also gearing up for its centennial anniversary in July 2007.

The close-knit congregation is now scattered and grieving the loss of their church.

Former church members also declined to speak out publicly about the church’s troubles, but said they were sad and felt betrayed.

The church has long roots in the Maxwelton community.

The Little Brown Church was a labor of love in 1907 when a group of 80 or so people contributed $804 in cash and labor to build the first church building.

In 1908, The Little Brown Church was organized as the Free Methodist Church of South Whidbey. Though they changed their name in the mid-1990s to Maxwelton Christian Fellowship, it was still affiliated with the Free Methodists for 98 years.

It was brown, according to historical records, because one of the parishioners mixed all his left over paint together and it came out dark brown.

The church was renovated over the years, and a parsonage was also constructed.

It stayed brown until 1994 when the church was painted gray.

Even so, the congregation and many South Enders still referred to the house of worship as The Little Brown Church.

To the current congregation, which consists mostly of retired people, it was an important part of their lives. Small groups of the congregation are meeting in each other’s homes and are visiting other South Whidbey churches to see if they can find a new place of worship.

Some say they aren’t interested, though, in places where “bongos and bands” play during services.

Members say the closure of the church is a loss to the community, too. Parishioners have donated funds to Helping Hand, Pregnancy Care Center, a local charity, the Union Gospel Mission in Everett, Gideon Ministries, and the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, as well as giving monthly aid to several children and their families and the food bank.

The Free Methodist denomination is one of the smaller Christian churches.

“We have about 100,000 people sitting churches across the country on Sunday morning,” said Jim Harbour, assistant superintendent of the Pacific Northwest Conference of Free Methodists.

Whether some of those will be attending a Free Methodist Church on Whidbey Island remains to be seen. Whithead said the conference has no specific plans to reopen.

“However, at some some point, we would like to be back on Whidbey Island. We have been there through thick and thin,” Whitehead said.

Pastor Jolin, meanwhile, is uncertain about his future as a pastor on Whidbey Island.

When asked whether he believed a Free Methodist Church would reopen on South Whidbey Jolin said, “anything is possible.”

“I don’’t make those decisions. But I don’t think the issue is closed,” Jolin said.

Jolin used a quote from Ecclesiastes to help describe the closure.

“There is a time for every matter or purpose under heaven… a time to die,” he said.

“A lot of things are transient,” Jolin said.

Gayle Saran can be reached at 221-5300 or gsaran@southwhidbeyrecord.com.