Hope in the Wilderness

The story of the Gardiner Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Gardiner, Maine, offers an important view into some of the very challenging issues facing many mainline churches, especially those churches located in places like central Maine.

The Gardiner Congregational Church closed several years ago.  Some of the church’s members came over to the church that I serve in Hallowell, just a couple of towns away.  It’s been heartbreaking to hear them talk about their church as a “failure.”  “Are you sure you want us to join your church?” one woman asked me, “Our church failed.”

Is that the best way of looking at the closing?  Is it really just one isolated example of failure? Of a congregation that just couldn’t manage to evangelize enough to keep the place going?

Or, was there something much wider and broader, and deeper that contributed to the church’s demise?  Did elements exist that were simply out of the control of church members?

I believe these last two questions are profoundly important—not only to the folks from Gardiner, but to all people who attend mainline churches in areas like central Maine.

What do I mean by “places like central Maine”?  Various things:

1. An area that has undergone population decline in recent years.  In Gardiner’s case, the overall population decline between 1980 and 2010 was 10.5%.  The decline of people under the age of 18 was even more  dramatic—32%.
2. An area with an aging population.  Gardiner’s median age, between 1980 and 2000, rose from 31 to 38.  By age of population, Maine is the oldest state in the country.
3. An area with a lot of religious competition.  At the time of Gardiner’s closure, the town had about eight or nine churches (the total population of the town was only 5800 in 2010).
4. A population with little or no interest in becoming affiliated with a church.  A recent survey found that only 27% of Mainers self-identify as Christian.

In the last several years of Gardiner’s life, the leadership of the church reached out for assistance, from the Maine Conference and from their local Association.  I was one of the people from the Association that visited with them on several occasions.  In the end, my consulting partner and I strongly suggested that they try to remove themselves from the building.  It had become a such a major concern (it was too big and too hard to maintain, plus the layout of the building did not serve the church well at all, with a kitchen, for instance, in the basement) that the members could think of little else but to worry about the physical structure in which they gathered.  To the two Association outsiders who listened to their worries and concerns, it was blatantly obvious that this was no way to be the church.

Yet, it was too difficult to think about being the church without that particular building.  And, in the end, our report was filed in the “circular file.”  It didn’t help that the Conference was telling the church something quite different.  The Conference convinced the church to spend as much money as possible to hire a minister for as much time as possible.  The church took more money from its savings and hired a newly ordained, inexperienced pastor on a three-quarter time call (the previous pastor had been one-half time).  The Conference also encouraged the church to enroll in the Parishes of Promise program, a Conference sponsored effort that helped the church focus on “asset assessment” and “goal-setting.”

The problem, though, for the Gardiner church went far beyond what was going on within the four walls of their church building.  They should have been encouraged to spend much more time considering the community in which they existed.  It is indeed difficult and painful to accept that the community in which one exists is interested in different things than one’s church, and that one’s church is no longer at the center of community life.  But, this is reality and it is a reality shared by many other churches.

At Old South, I consistently try to remind the congregation that we must always be in the midst of a juggling act.  On the one hand, we must face the realities of our community.  And, on the other hand, we must be hopeful, Easter people, always committed to spreading the good news.

I believe that this “juggling act” must be the focus for more churches.  Perhaps it will help people see beyond that horrible word “failure” and that in addition to assessing our “assets,” we must also explore our “liabilities.”

For the Maine Conference, the Gardiner church stands only as a tale to tell of a faithful group that did as well as they could, but had to close and they are to be thanked because they gave their building to the Conference, and some of their other assets to other Conference programming—as if they were just an isolated, and rare, case of a church that closed (and note:  that building remains unsold, and empty).

The Gardiner church, though, really ought to be a case study that each and every one of our churches explores and discusses.  In these deep struggles, will each church end up deciding that it is just an isolated “failure,” or will each church find new life, and new hope, no matter what happens?

For mainline churches in places like central Maine, we have many challenging issues, and at the heart of every single one is the question about how we can remain faithful to the Gospel and hopeful, while also understanding reality.  We ought to be seeking many more opportunities to encourage and support one another, and to work together, to discern the path that is ahead, even if that means leaving our past (and present) hopes and dreams behind.

Last Friday, I officiated at one of the largest memorial services that we’ve had at Old South during my tenure.  The sanctuary was packed with people—every pew space was taken and people lined the walls on the sides and along the back.  The man we were remembering was well-known and well-respected, and he had died suddenly at an age that many peopole would classify these days as something along the lines of “slightly later middle age.”

More than one church member commented on how different it all felt to have the sanctuary completely full, even the front pews.  On most Sundays, we get a small fraction of the size of the congregation for this memorial service.  Even on Christmas Eve, for our one service, we had only a hundred people in attendance, a smaller than average crowd for one of the most significant services of the year.

And, then what was even more interesting were the comments offered by a few people who were not only surprised that this man’s service took place at Old South, but that he actually attended the church.  Although he hadn’t attended regularly in the last few years, his wife is at worship on a regular basis and when I first came to Old South, Peter served on a committee and as the church clerk.  To some of his acquaintances, this was surprising, unexpected news.

The title of this blog is “Hope in the Wilderness,” but I must admit that I’m feeling a bit more “wilderness” these days than hope.  I feel like something has changed.  It’s not just that my old “mainline” church is more at the sidelines these days, it’s that I’ve been sensing the feeling that me and my church, along with others who follow an institutional religion, are being pushed right off the respectability wagon—as if no person in their right mind could possibly want to be a part of a church.

I was invited to offer the invocation and benediction at Hallowell’s annual inauguration ceremony this year, just a couple of nights ago.  Except for the couple of church folks in attendance, the mayor, and one of the city councilors that I’ve met in the past, only one person at the event made any kind of effort to speak to me—to thank me for being there and to say something about Old South.  It didn’t feel like people were just being shy.  It felt more like I had suddenly sprouted large purple spots on my face, like people preferred not to speak to me, lest whatever weird condition I had might find itself drifting in their direction, as if I had just sneezed or coughed without covering my face.

I’m trying not to be paranoid, but the fact that Maine is among the least churched states in the country, and now that we are learning that the “nones” are not only increasing, but are quite content in their status, I’m wondering if the tide is turning against me and my church.

I’m still looking for that branch that will break this fall that I’m sensing (see last week’s post).  The country may have averted the fiscal cliff, but I don’t think my cliff has been averted at all.  In fact, I feel like the force of gravity is only getting stronger.  In this season, though, I am still looking for some hope, and wondering what this all means for me, my faith, my church—and how we do what we do and how we live what is important.  There was one little scrap, though, of something approaching hopefulness.  After the memorial service, I heard that a friend of the man who died, after being involved in the service and in its planning, was pretty impressed by the experience and suggested that she might think about checking the church out a little more.  I won’t hold my breath, but it’s something and something is more than nothing.  How’s that for hopeful?

In Central Maine, churches face a very difficult reality.  A Central Maine mainline church may have great programming, a wonderful minister, meaningful worship, an enthusiastic Christian Education program, a heavenly choir, and a friendly, welcoming and open congregation.  And, yet, a church may still not be able to sustain its membership numbers, let alone grow, and it may not be able to continue its existence into the future—for little, or no, fault of its own.

We can build it, but they still may not come—simply because they don’t live here anymore.

The once mighty industries that fueled the economy of Central Maine and the towns and cities therein—textiles and paper, in particular—are almost non-existent.  And the people that worked in those industries, well, they are mostly gone too.

In Augusta, Maine, for instance, the population shrunk significantly between 1980 and 2000.  In an especially significant category, one that signals the numbers of families with young children, the population of people under the age of 18 shrunk by 25% in that twenty year span.  In nearby Waterville, the population in the same category shrunk by almost as much.  Some of those people, and the families to whom they belonged, moved to some of the smaller communities in the area, but not all of them.  While the population between 2000 and 2010 has stabilized in the region, the decline in the years between 1980 and 2000 was considerable.

We see the toll of the population decline on schools, hospitals, the small, struggling downtowns, and in the real estate market.  Yet, so many churches continue to believe that they are somehow immune to the dynamics of the communities in which they exist.

And, while we fail to engage the numbers, we also don’t really consider the other dynamic altering our communities—they are getting older.  In the small city where my church, Old South Congregational United Church of Christ, exists (just south of Augusta), the median age increased from 32, in 1980, to 42, in 2000.  Overall, Maine is now the oldest state in the country.

In addition to all of this bad news, there is yet one more big piece of unwelcome news:  Maine is the least churched state in the United States.  Although there is some debate about this fact (some Oregonians believe that they are the least churched and some Vermonters believe that they “win” this prize), Maine is clearly among the least churched.  According to one study, only twenty-seven percent of Maine residents self-identify as Christian.

We can build it, but they may not come.  That’s the challenge, and reality, of our churches in Maine.

It’s not that numbers are critically important to who we are, and what our mission is.  After all, Jesus never said anything about the church with the most people being the church that he would love best.  But, numbers are significant to the bottom line.  It is unfortunate that our physical plants don’t magically shrink in tandem with the decline in our attendance numbers.  Our smaller congregations are stuck with buildings that are too large and expensive to maintain.

This is the challenge that churches in Central Maine face:  what if we build it and they don’t come?  And what does that mean for our future?  And perhaps the most important question of all:  Will we face this unwelcome reality openly and faithfully, or will we simply ignore it and pretend that a brighter day will just somehow happen?

My hope is that we can engage this unwelcome reality, in faith and in hope.  It won’t be easy, that’s for sure, but the alternative is to watch churches, one by one, cease to exist.  For me, that’s a possibility that is just too awful to contemplate.

Our future is certainly different than our present, but it’s important to remember that that’s always been true.  So, where is God calling us to go and how is God speaking to us about who we are and who we will be?

It will better for us to think through and discuss this question, prayerfully—together, as a church—and to ponder anew what it means for us to be the church in this place.  May God’s Spirit carry us through and lead us—push us—to new life in the midst of this challenging environment.