And the Work Continues: Reflections by Cathy Dempesy-Sims on the Lifecycle of Congregations
This is a work of fiction based on the lived experience of a diocesan employee who has seen a thing or two. week.
And the work continues.
Fran said, “it’s just a building. I worship a God who cannot (will not?) be contained. I feel as close to God watching the sunrise as I do at church on Sunday.” Those in earshot found the remark condescending and patronizing, but that wasn’t Fran’s intent. Fran didn’t know the pain Adam and Louise were experiencing because St. Swithin’s wasn’t the congregation (or even the denomination) she grew up in. Her grandmother didn’t needlepoint the gospel book cover, and her kids weren’t baptized in the font that they just witnessed being hauled out of the church on a dolly.
Until today.
Today, some two and half years after Fran stopped by St. Swithin’s to see if they had any purificators she could repurpose for her congregation, Church of the Great Snootiness of Sanctity, CGSS was having their own open house for the diocese. Fran and others at CGSS assumed the congregations that had closed simply failed to love Jesus the right way and closed due to “faulty faith.” Until the stock market faltered and their 10% draw from the endowment for the past 23 years caught up to them.
When the slate roof collapsed and Church Insurance wouldn’t cover the repairs due to chronic delayed maintenance, Church of the Great Snootines of Sanctity needed to close.
Did their faith fail them or did their luck run out?
Of course neither is true, not for CGSS nor St. Swithin’s. What happened was what happens—demographics change, church leadership gets tired, buildings age, the rainy day fund dries up, delayed maintenance catches up. Who knows why, the specifics differ, the result achingly similar: Church buildings need to be vacated, congregations dissolve.
Sometimes the decision to close is made thoughtfully, prayerfully, and clearly. Sometimes the money runs out, the building falls apart.
At still other times the leadership ages, some die, some move, and the “younger generation” can’t commit the same degree of human resources to keep a building going and ministries vibrant.
Choices are made.
Hearts are broken.
Sighs of relief and sorrow blend and the emotion shifts are profound. Everyone is tired and sad and, in some cases, bitter and angry. Regardless, the space is secularized and the building repurposed.
Baptismal Fonts, Sunday School supply cabinets, crosses, pews and linens are given away.
In spite of it all, the moon rises in the evening and the sun in the morn.
God is worshipped elsewhere, Jesus’s directives are followed and if we’re true to our faith, the hungry are fed, the unhoused are sheltered and the excluded are invited in.
True, the building isn’t the church, but the church is full of buildings, memories, and the spirit of souls too numerous to number, with sighs too deep and profound for words, are sighed, God is loved, Jesus is followed and our work continues.
But real people have real feelings and the loss of a building ,watching its contents hauled away, is real and painful even though tonight, tomorrow and for all the tomorrows to come, God is loved, Jesus is followed, and the work continues.
Yes, the work continues.