You would never know from a look inside St. John’s Lutheran Church in Greenpoint that it’s been around since 1891.

As recently as this last summer, it didn’t quite look so welcoming, with the walls peeling and piecs of plaster dropping from the ceiling. 

“The space itself wasn’t the most glowing, beautiful place you wanted to hang out in,” parishioner Amelia Murray said.

Another parishioner, Simone Tetteh, says it was a situation where you might not realize how bad it was until you see the way it looks now. 

“I look at pictures from the old place and I’m like, yeah, there was a hole in the wall,” Tetteh said. 

That has changed since the cleverly titled "Sinners Repaint" campaign raised $100,000 to help pay for restoration, spearheaded by Pastor Katrina Foster, who started ministering at the church in 2015.

At the time, the congregation founded by German immigrants in 1867 was on the verge of closing.

Pastor Foster says it’s one thing for a church to find the money to make repairs, but if there’s no vision and mission, the church has simply prolonged the closing.

“Congregations that become inwardly focused, die, this congregation and congregations that are growing and exciting are the ones that are looking out into the world asking the question, ‘God, what would you have us do?’” Foster said. 

That’s exactly what Pastor Foster and the congregation have been doing as the church has been revitalized under her leadership. A Saturday Community Meal, arts programming, recovery programs and scouting all have a home at the building on Milton Street.

“When I first got here, they were kind of closed up, we opened up more to the community because we needed to do that,” Jan Lorenzen, head usher, said.

Even with the sparkling renovations here, Pastor Foster is keeping photos of the way it used to look throughout the church. 

“I want the congregation to remember always where it has come from,” Foster said. 

Pastor Foster says more than 5,000 churches close every year in America, and when she arrived at St. John’s, it only had around a 10% chance of coming back to life, but it did. 

For more information, visit stjohnsgreenpoint.com.