Whimpers from Western Massachusetts: This is How the Parish Ends

from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith

I always chuckle whenever an Episcopal bishop, presiding over the financial collapse of an entire diocese, fancies himself an expert in global macroeconomiics. Such is the case with Bishop Gordon P. Scruton of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, who opens his 2009 address to diocesan convention with this:

"This past year we experienced the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression. Greed and selfish desire for more money and things took priority over the common good. The poor in our nation and around the world have suffered most. This crisis continues to impact the jobs and retirement savings of people in our country and diocese. Some have reflected deeply on the lessons of this collapse and are changing their life-styles and values. Others simply try to perpetuate the priorities that led us into this economic crash without recognition that our American life-style is not sustainable."

By "our American life-style is not sustainable," of course, I suspect he means "our diocesan life-style," or more probably "the lifestyle to which Episcopal bishops have become accustomed."

Because the Diocese of Western Massachusetts is in a world of hurt:
Many of our congregations and our Diocesan budget, that depend on income from endowments, experienced significant financial losses this past year. As a diocese we
had to cut 10% from our balanced Diocesan Budget passed at the last Convention. Early in the year, under the leadership of Steve Abdow, we began to cut spending. These early actions were extremely important in helping us live within our diminished budget.

Well okay... a 10% budget cut in tough economic times? That's not so bad. A little belt-tightening never hurt anybody, right?

"For several years we have been investing heavily in Bement Camp and Conference Center, seeking to maintain this holy place where young people and adults have experienced transforming Christian community for over sixty years. After Convention last year, we held a Bement Summit in November to outline the challenges and to brainstorm possible options to maintain that ministry.

"Unfortunately, changes in government regulations, the continuing cost of deferred maintenance, the changing expectations of campers and the decline in attendance led the Diocesan Council to recognize that we cannot maintain the ministry of Bement as we have known it. In June, after years of prayer, study, investment and effort, the Council, made the decision that we can no longer maintain a diocesan camp at Bement. On October 3rd we gathered to give thanks for the memories and celebrate all the good that God has done in the lives of so many people in that holy place.

"Now, the Bement Property Discernment Group is working to develop a recommendation for the wisest stewardship of that resource. We have the opportunity to do something overtly positive with the property. LandVest, our land use consulting group, has provided the Discernment Group with a number of possible alternatives. The goals of the Discernment Group are: 1) to honor the legacy of Mary Bement and 60 years of Camp Bement; 2) Find new use for the land that is consistent with our faith and values; and 3) invest the resources generated by the sale of the property or a conservation easement into creative Christian formation opportunities for new generations of young people and adults of our diocese."

Aaaaaand.... another diocesan retreat bites the dust. But let's parse that last sentence and see if we can figure out what the bishop means by it:
creative Christian formation opportunities for new generations of young people and adults of our diocese

"Creative Christian formation opportunities" means "we don't have a clue what we're going to do with the proceeds from the sale of the retreat, but it sure as heck won't be anything like another retreat. It may not even be a smaller version of what we have now. It may not even be real estate at all. Probably what we're talking about here are a few ill-considered programs and ministries with goals and metrics that aren't easily measured, into which we can dump some money in an attempt to make people think we're actually interested in Christian formation."

"New generations of young people" means "hey, that hip-hop mass thing sounds pretty groovy, huh? Book a flight for Catherine Roskam, let's get her up in the hizzouse and let her bust some rhymes. I'm going to catch a quick 9 at the club - write up something for the newsletter and make up a quote from me."

"And adults" means... actually, I have no idea what this means. When I put the whole phrase back together: "creative Christian formation opportunities for new generations of young people and adults of our diocese"...what I hear is meaningless drivel, a sentence crying out for phrases like "actively engaged at all levels" and "deeply concerned about our future," anything to add syllables without adding meaning.

But enough of that. A 10% budget cut in tough economic times? That could be simple, responsible belt-tightening in a challenging economic time. Selling off the diocesan retreat center? Certainly Western Massachusetts isn't the first diocese to do that, and it won't be the last.

But let's look on the bright side: TEC dioceses have the buildings. Oh sure, ultimately they'll probably lose in Virginia, and South Carolina is almost certainly a lost cause for them, but if there's one thing TEC's got going for it, it's buildings. They've spent millions - perhaps tens of millions, truth be told - all over the country, litigating against departing congregations in order to keep their buildings.

Yes, sir: Buildings are where it's at it in TEC. You keep the buildings, you keep the prestige. You keep the public image. You keep a home base for important ministry and mission work. You keep a sense of permanence, a solid and unchanging face of stability to seekers and committed Christians alike.

Oh wait:

"At the same time we have recognized that we could not afford to maintain the Bement property, we have also had to face the reality that we are not able to maintain all our church buildings. "The Church has far too many buildings that have ceased to serve a useful purpose. In the last century, before the days of the automobile, many churches were built too close to one another, and today they are struggling for survival. Often one would suffice where two or three now exist because they are only a few minutes apart by automobile. We must begin to think in terms of combining such churches, having team ministries, or, in cases where budgets are small, having them staffed by clergy who during much of the week are engaged in secular employment. All of this is going to involve some bold and farsighted re-thinking in the near future."

"I would urge all of our people to get over the idea that the Church is a building. It is not a building at all. Instead, a Church is people, and it exists whether they meet in an ecclesiastical structure or in a storefront or in somebody’s home. The place of meeting is not all-important and the sooner we accept this the freer we shall be to plan constructively for the future. Small struggling churches located not far from other Episcopal churches, will have to be combined".It is very important that we face this realistically and prepare now for an orderly change instead of drifting planlessly into a future that we are afraid to confront."

"These comments about church buildings are a direct quote from the 1969 Convention Address of Bishop Hatch. We continue to face the same issues that Bishop Hatch outlined forty years ago. This past year, we began to talk more openly about the reality that we have more church buildings than we can support."

Well.

Hmmmm.

One moment, bishop.

Have you cleared this with Katharine Schori and David Booth Beers:
The Church has far too many buildings that have ceased to serve a useful purpose.

"...get over the idea that the Church is a building

"a Church is people, and it exists whether they meet in an ecclesiastical structure or in a storefront or in somebody’s home. The place of meeting is not all-important and the sooner we accept this the freer we shall be to plan constructively for the future."

Careful, Bishop Scruton - you keep quoting things like that and somebody's liable to mistake you for an ACNA church planter. Wouldn't want that!

So how does this look on the ground? What does the financial collapse of an Episcopal diocese actually look like? Bishop Scruton helpfully illustrates:

"In January we celebrated with the people of St. John’s Worcester as they completed 125 years of faithful ministry in Worcester. Through a prayerful and courageous yearlong discernment process, the people of St. John’s came to recognize and accept their lack of energy, money and people to carry on the ministry of the congregation. We grieved with them as they acted on God’s call to let go of trying to maintain their congregation and chose to end their ministry and close St. John’s.

"Now the legacy and ministry of St. John’s lives on in the lives of its members who have scattered as apostles, sharing their gifts and experience with congregations they have embraced in the surrounding area. Soon the organ of St. John’s will provide music for St. Michael’s in Worcester. The people of Grace Church, Oxford sing their hymns every Sunday out of St. John’s hymnals. St Luke’s Worcester uses the dishes from the St. John’s kitchen for their celebrations. Prayer Books and altar hanging from St. John’s inspire worship in congregations in Liberia. Hand bells from St. John’s ring out at St. Francis, Holden and at Wachusett Regional High School. Neighborhood churches carry on the food pantry that was begun at St. John’s. The Iglesia Cristiana Natanael continues to worship at St John’s. There is strong likelihood that another congregation will soon be renting the St. John’s building with the possibility of purchase."

Wait wait wait wait wait... stop the tape. Did he just say:

"Soon the organ of St. John’s will provide music for St. Michael’s in Worcester. The people of Grace Church, Oxford sing their hymns every Sunday out of St. John’s hymnals. St Luke’s Worcester uses the dishes from the St. John’s kitchen for their celebrations. Prayer Books and altar hanging from St. John’s inspire worship in congregations in Liberia. Hand bells from St. John’s ring out at St. Francis, Holden and at Wachusett Regional High School."

This is how a parish dies in the revisionist diocese of Western Massachusetts, and how others will surely die in dioceses like Eastern Michigan, Newark, Western New York and others, where The New Thing was promised to create growing, thriving congregations positively bursting with young people, minorities and gays. This is what becomes of it: It is cannibalized - its organ and prayer books and hymnals and hand bells and even the dishes from its kitchen, all strewn among other parishes that, for now, survive; a pack of hungry, bony scavengers gnawing on bits and pieces that used to be a carcass, a carcass that used to be a church.

But surely the indignity stops there. Surely this is where the pain ends.

Well, no:

"We also learned that closing a congregation requires an enormous amount of time, energy and money on the part of a congregation and diocesan staff. It is expensive and time consuming to maintain empty church buildings when there is no congregation there to oversee those responsibilities. The architecture and real estate market make it difficult to sell church buildings. In the future, closing a congregation will impact all the parishes of the diocese through shared expenses in our diocesan budget."

So what does that mean - "In the future, closing a congregation will impact all the parishes of the diocese through shared expenses in our diocesan budget."?

It means that it costs money to close a church, and since the diocese has no choice but to close more churches, it likewise has no choice but to pay those expenses.

It means that those expenses will be paid not by the dying congregation, but by the diocese, which of course gets its money from member parishes; thus the expense of closing a church is borne collectively by the remaining congregations.

It means that money which would otherwise go to fund mission and ministry, things that grow churches, they will now be paying lawyers, bankers and real-estate agents to close churches down.

It means that instead of paying for the people and things that help spread a message the core meaning of which is life, it will now be subsidizing the costs of death.

When deprived of food, the human body first begins consuming its own fat. When it runs out of fat, it moves on to muscle. The very act of looking for food causes the body to consume itself even more quickly. At that point the end is near unless something drastic happens. This is the situation Western Massachusetts is facing, and to make matters worse, over the last few decades it has not been involved in the business of watering the land and encouraging growth, but raking the barren ground into tidy, lifeless rows - the field over which it now must forage.

It also means that congregations have no choice in the matter: Either they continue paying their diocesan contributions to cover these shut-down costs, or the diocese goes bankrupt. And even then, the future of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts is anything but certain:

"The closing of Bement and St. John’s and the impact of the financial crisis raised strategic questions about the future of our ministry in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. In May, I sent a Bishop’s Pastoral Mission Letter to our diocese inviting us to reflect on the sobering challenges we are facing and at the same time inviting us to explore the creative new opportunities for ministry that God’s Spirit is opening for us in our new situation. The letter has generated much discussion across the diocese."

I'll bet it has, bishop.

I'll bet it has.