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The United Methodist Publishing House announced on October 4 that the sale of its Nashville property has been completed, at a price of $24.5 million. The lakefront campus was sold to R2, a Chicago-based real estate investment firm.

UMPH is the denomination’s oldest continuous entity, dating to 1789. However, recent decades have seen it contracting along with the denomination’s US membership.

In 2012, UMPH announced that it would be closing all of its brick-and-

Though the electricity was turned off in all buildings on the site, visitors arriving at Crystal Springs camp on September 12 for its official decommissioning were embraced by the sacred power of the place. Until its closing in 2019, Crystal Springs had been a United Methodist camp and retreat center for 160 years.

But earlier this year, Michigan Area United Methodist Camping sold the Dowagiac, Michigan, campgrounds to the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. The United Methodist group could no longer maintain the grounds, due to increasing costs and declining membership.