On a recent Sunday, the congregation of one of Durham's older congregations held an afternoon service to mark the closing of their church, Carr United Methodist.

Gene Perry had trouble holding his emotions in check as members stood to pay homage to their church and to recall its legacy. He stumbled a bit at first, but then fell into sharing memories of great times of fellowship, like making stew in the fall of the year and feeling blessed by going with a church group to help in the worship service at Murdoch Center in Butner.

"I know we did the best thing two years ago and we are doing the best thing today," said Perry, who had been a Carr member since 1971.

This was no usual worship service. It was a memorial service of sorts, celebrating the life of the church that was born in 1886 in a fourth-floor room at the old East Durham Cotton Mill. It grew up to be a flagship congregation in the city, with a membership of about 1,000 in the 1950s; but then experienced a decade-by-decade decline as Durham's inner-city began a slow but steady metamorphosis.

That change in inner-city demographics prompted the Carr congregation two years ago to sign over its facility at the corner of Driver and East Main streets to Shepherd's House UMC, a church composed mostly of immigrants from Zimbabwe that was already sharing space at Carr and successfully reaching out to the surrounding neighborhood.

The small remnant of Carr folks, 10 to 15, decided to close the church because they could no longer sustain a budget. They gathered for their final time at Pleasant Green UMC on the first Sunday in June, where they had been meeting for the past two years. Many of them dabbed at their eyes as others stood to speak about their memories and the legacy of the church.

Dot Boyd, 79, whose two daughters, Cindy Fox and Jenny Brusino are both members, said that losing her church was heart-wrenching. "My great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother, plus uncles and aunts, were all members of this congregation," she said.

Her story is similar to others who went to Sunday school at Carr, were baptized there, were married there and raised their children there.

"Carr church was a way of life for me. God put me here as a child and it has been the people, not the building, that supported and carried me. I love you and I thank you," said Tacoma O'Connor, who was church secretary and a diaconal minister.

Her husband, Francis O'Connor, added that he is confident God has another door to open for Carr folks. "All of us will see that door open," he said.

Some members have already chosen another place of worship. Others say they are still looking.

About a dozen members of Shepherd's House, including the Rev. Chris Chikoore, who was the pastor at the church at the time, attended the Pleasant Green service. (The Rev. John Gumbo is now the pastor at Shepherd's House.) The group sang and lay leader Margaret Makonyonga spoke for the group.

"You have done great things for us at Shepherd's House," she said. "You took us from a lower level to a higher level."

The Rev. Roberta Byram, the Carr pastor for the past year, has been assigned to Lemon Springs UMC in the Sanford District.