Adam Randazzo (STH’09) and his wife, Michelle, exit the church nave after Living Faith United Methodist Church’s reopening service on December 7, 2025. Randazzo led the congregation through a rebuilding process that lasted nearly eight years. Photo by Coco McCabe

Religion

An Ipswich Church Rises from the Rubble

Living Faith United Methodist Church returns to its historic building seven years after being displaced by a devastating ceiling collapse, full of hope for the future

When the ceiling collapsed at Living Faith United Methodist Church in Ipswich, Mass., pastor Adam Randazzo was determined not to let the congregation’s future collapse with it.

Any other Friday, Randazzo might have been inside the building, doing a walk-through before Sunday services. The afternoon of May 25, 2018, however, Randazzo (STH’09) was picking up his children from school when a truss failed and the church’s 160-year-old ceiling crashed to the floor, crushing the pews and everything in the sanctuary. As he pulled up to the church parsonage he lives in with his family, Randazzo saw fire trucks and first responders investigating what was clearly a disaster inside the sanctuary. His heart sank when he spotted a parishioner’s car parked behind the church. First responders used thermal cameras to search for anyone who might have been trapped under the rubble in the building. Thankfully, nobody was inside when the ceiling fell. The parishioner whose car was parked behind the building was visiting the nearby library.

“In my brain, I thought, ‘Buildings can be replaced, but people can’t,’” Randazzo says. “I went into self-preservation at that point: What do I do to make this better? How do I help members? How do I even tell people that this happened?

“And then I said, ‘Oh wait—where are we going to have church on Sunday morning?’”

The pastor of the nearby Ascension Memorial Episcopal Church invited Living Faith parishioners to use their building for that Sunday’s worship. The congregation also held services online and in person at its second campus in Beverly. 

Now, after nearly eight years and $3 million in repairs—including new ramps for people with disabilities, two elevators, and three bathrooms to bring the 1859 structure up to code—Living Faith has opened its doors again in Ipswich, finally able to worship under the steeple pictured on the town seal. Randazzo was emotional as he welcomed a crowd of 170 to the building’s reopening service on December 7, telling congregants that they are part of history. He pointed out that they may notice a few repairs yet to be made. 

“If you walk around, you might find some things that are not quite perfect yet,” Randazzo said, beaming. “But God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. God expects us to be who we are, and this is who we are. We did leave some scars on the building, some scars from where this whole ceiling came down in one big chunk. There are scars up on this altar rail up here to always remind us that it could be that last moment. But God wasn’t done with us yet. God gave us a hope of a future of something new and something different.”

“Some Serious Soul-Searching to Do” 

Inspectors say the ceiling fell as a unified chunk after one of the six trusses on the 65-foot-long building cracked. Besides crushing everything below it (except for a new baby grand piano on the chancel, which Randazzo calls a miracle), the collapse unleashed asbestos into the building. All organic matter—including church records that were not in a safe—was deemed toxic and had to be thrown out. 

Within two years of the collapse, Living Faith was able to remove and replace the ceiling and floor in the sanctuary. But the church building had to be brought up to modern accessibility standards—an expense insurance wouldn’t cover. The congregation, whose regular attendance was fewer than 50, simply could not afford code updates that would cost in the millions.

“We had some serious soul-searching to do as a congregation—whether or not to remain there or sell the building and buy a new place,” Randazzo says. The ceiling collapse “could have been life-ending for the church in Ipswich.”

But with land in the coastal town extremely limited and a commitment from the United Methodist Church New England Conference to support the effort financially, church members decided to stay on Monument Green and give Ipswich’s longest standing church building new life. Much of the next seven years would be spent haggling with the insurance company, which Randazzo says is “something they don’t teach you in seminary.”

What seminary had taught Randazzo was to stay receptive to the spirit—even if it’s blowing in a different direction. So that’s what he did.

“A perfect storm of good”

The first direction shift came during COVID, which Randazzo calls “the great reset button for all churches.” As plans progressed for the Ipswich renovation, Living Faith leaned into service and outreach to the homeless at its Beverly location, providing for the community during a time of great need. Like many congregations, it also began streaming its services, drawing thousands of views a week online, in addition to the 40 regulars at its Beverly location. (Randazzo says services will continue both online and in Beverly.)

Next, congregants decided not to reinstall the historic pews destroyed in the ceiling collapse—a decision driven by declining attendance, the high replacement cost, and a vision to use the space differently from there on out. Instead, worshippers would sit on stackable chairs that can be moved to the sides of the sanctuary, opening the room up as an event space. 

When a newly formed nonprofit, the Ipswich Community House, approached Randazzo with a plan to share the renovated Ipswich church building and use it to host community events, like plays, lectures, and concerts, the final direction shift came. With four other churches within a 10th of a mile of Living Faith, the partnership gives the building a purpose beyond its Sunday worship service. “I think one of the biggest goals was, how can we be part of the community better?” Randazzo says. “I think that when churches start getting inward, they lose vision.”

Randazzo says that Friday in 2018 could easily have marked the end of the historic house of worship. Instead, he sees the course of events in the last few years as a new chapter in the congregation’s life—“a perfect storm of good in our benefit. 

“Everything took place the way it needed to take place,” he says, “and now we have this beautiful hall to do amazing events.”