Flat Rock United Methodist Church – one of DeKalb’s oldest churches – is on the brink of losing the $1 million sanctuary it opened with great fanfare in 2004.

The church, which was founded by ex-slaves, has anchored the historic Flat Rock Community in Lithonia since 1860.

Its 156 members, who took the ceremonial march into the new 350-seat sanctuary at 4542 Evans Mill Road on April 4, 2004, included members of 18 families whose ancestors were among the founders of the church. Those families have lived continuously along Flat Rock, Crossvale and Evans Mill roads since the 1800s and their community predates the formation of DeKalb County in 1822.

They are now facing the prospect of not only losing their sanctuary, but also the possible dissolution of the 150-year-old church.

Vera Whitaker, who grew up in the community, has been a lifelong member of the church. She said Thursday that it hurts even to talk about the end of a way of life.

“It’s the place I always go to,” she said, breaking down in tears. “It’s the place you felt welcome.”

Whitaker remembers how great it felt to have room to move around in the new building after the cramped quarters of the old 120-seat church.

“I was glad to have more space myself,” she said. “I was so happy. I love that church. I love the land it sits on. It’s a beautiful spot.”

Church members and current pastor Troy Benton are in disagreement about whether SunTrust Bank, which holds the $750,000 mortgage note, is about to foreclose on the church. Members say the church is broke and that loan is about to reset with a balloon payment that they are unable to make.

Benton, who arrived at the troubled church in June 2009 and attempted to merge it with the Isaiah United Methodist Church he initiated in Stone Mountain four years earlier, said Flat Rock UMC has never missed any of its $6,532.32 monthly loan payments, but that it will be unable to make its Sept. 21 payment.

“I have not received a letter or a phone call saying anybody is foreclosing on us,” he said Thursday. “We are having trouble making payment, but SunTrust is not forcing us to leave the building.”

Whitaker, a member and past chairperson of the church’s board of trustees, said the church fell behind on its payment once before and that the bank wants it out of the building.

“We don’t have any money,” she said. “SunTrust wants us to go. They want to close it up.”

Whitaker said the church has no savings and that the $175,000 it sold its old 2,000 square-foot church building for was used up to pay bills and salaries.

“We don’t have anything,” she said. “It’s a shame. It’s heartbreaking.”

Flat Rock UMC, like thousands of churches nationwide lured by easy credit and heady growth predictions, expanded during the real estate boom.

Borrowing by churches reached $28 billion nationwide in 2006, including mortgages, construction loans and church bonds, according to Lambert, Edwards & Associates, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based consulting firm. But as the economic recession took hold, congregants lost jobs and tithes and offerings plummeted. Many churches are now finding it difficult to service their loans.

In recent months, hundreds of churches nationwide, including many in Atlanta, have fallen behind on their mortgage payments or have received foreclosure notices.

Benton said church members of record will be asked to decide the church’s future at a Sept. 12 “private congregational meeting.” He said the options on the table are to relocate the congregation, dissolve the church, and other alternatives that he would not discuss.

“I am not at liberty to say anything else,” he said. “The future of the church is a private matter.”

Whitaker said that the UMC District has declined to help the church.

Reached Thursday, UMC District Superintendent Sharma Lewis referred telephone calls to the North Georgia Conference of the UMC. Its treasurer, Keith Cox, did not return a phone call by press time.

The church began life in 1860 as Flat Rock Episcopal Church. It became United Methodist in 1971. Its board of trustees voted in 1985 to construct a new building and began setting aside third Sunday tithes and offerings for the building fund.

It bought the 6.6-acre property in 1996 and broke ground for the new building on June 9, 2003.

Whitaker said the church had not had a mortgage since 1972 and its aging membership was unprepared for the burden of the huge mortgage note.

“We should have waited,” she said. “We didn’t know the economy would be that bad, that people would be without jobs, that people would leave, that people would put a handful of change in the offering basket.”

In the flush of expansion, members thought that an attractive new building would draw some of the new homeowners who were moving into new subdivisions with $300,000 and $500,000 homes that opened along Evans Mill and Browns Mill roads. Whitaker said none of that happened.

“I think we got one member,” she said. “Some of the Flat Rock people gave up on Flat Rock because of the ministers [the UMC District] sent us.”

Benton’s arrival with 72 members from Isaiah UMC also could not save the church. He said Thursday that the church has averaged 112 members this year.

Whitaker said the church has about 75 members. “All of his people didn’t come with him,” she said. “The money didn’t come with him. We thought the church would prosper with the merger. It didn’t.”

Johnny Waits, a third-generation member of the church, said the membership is in the dark about plans for the church.

“We really don’t know what is going on,” he said, asking a reporter what the pastor had to say.

Whitaker said she does not see how the Sept. 12 meeting can save the church or help them.

“If I had $1 million, I would put my million dollars into the church. I even found myself wishing I could win the lottery and buy the church. It means that much to me.”

DeKalb District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming has been picked by President Barack Obama to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 4, which encompasses Georgia and seven other Southern states and six tribal nations.

Announcing the appointment Wednesday, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said she is looking forward to working closely with Keyes Fleming on the many urgent environmental issues facing the country, and especially along Region 4’s Gulf Coast.

“Gwen is coming on at an exceptionally challenging time,” Jackson said. “She will certainly play an instrumental role in protecting the health and environment of all those living in the region.”

Keyes Fleming was set to vacate the District Attorney’s Office she has held for the past five years on Friday and will be sworn in on Tuesday.

She said Wednesday that she is grateful to Obama and Jackson for the trust they have placed in her and for giving her the opportunity to serve. She said that she will not be leaving the area.

“I will still be working with constituents in addressing their environmental concerns,” she said.

The special election to replace Keyes Fleming will be on the Nov. 2 ballot and qualifying will be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Her successor would complete the three years left on her term before running for re-election in 2013.

Keyes Fleming will be based in Atlanta and will work out of the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center on Forsyth Street in downtown Atlanta. Region 4 includes Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee and six Native American nations.

She will be one of 10 regional administrators nationwide who are responsible for managing the EPA’s regional activities under the direction of the EPA administrator.

Regional administrators promote state and local environmental protection efforts and serve as a liaison to state and local government officials. They also work to ensure that the EPA’s efforts to address the environmental crises are rooted in three fundamental values ­– science-based policies and programs, adherence to the rule of law, and transparency.

Keyes Fleming, who is the first African-American, first woman and youngest person to hold the DeKalb DA’s Office, has more than 15 years of experience as both a prosecutor and administrator.

As district attorney, she manages more than 165 employees, handling 13,000 felony cases each year with an annual budget of more than $12 million.

Prior to her election as district attorney, Keyes Fleming was the first woman and first African-American to be elected solicitor-general in DeKalb.

During the two terms she served in that office, she handled misdemeanor crimes and implemented numerous domestic violence prevention initiatives that successfully decreased the rate of domestic violence deaths in the county.

Keyes Fleming obtained her B.S. in finance from Rutgers University and her Juris Doctorate from the Emory University School of Law.

She has received numerous awards, including Emory Law’s Distinguished Alumni Award; the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys Leah Ward Sears Award for Distinction in the Profession in 2010; Atlanta’s Top 100 Black Women of Influence in 1999, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010; CrossRoadsNews Readers Choice Awards for Most Beloved Elected and Most Beloved Public Official; and the Women in the NAACP Award in 2010.