RELIGION: What’s left of recently divided church focuses on fresh thinking.
By Neale Gulley
The Tonawanda News
For the few remaining members of the former St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal church in the Town of Tonawanda, starting over meant staying right where they were.
Just a dozen-or-so in number, they represent the beginning of a brand new church in the same old building, now called Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles, since the majority of their members left citing philosophical differences with the greater Episcopal Church late last year.
Those who remain sat in the very same pews they’ve occupied in some cases for decades Sunday, listening to a sermon about seeing beyond the old veneer.
“Allow your responses to change,” the Rev. Sarah Gordy told worshippers young and old, elaborating on a theme encouraging spiritual growth and leaving old assertions at the door as Lent approaches.
“Refuse to be satisfied with the old answers ...” she said from her position at a lectern in the church near the corner of Brighton And Fries roads built in the 1950s. Until just a few months ago, the place was spiritual home to about 1,000 additional souls.
Just as the new church tries to redefine its place in a house which seems suddenly very large for the few who gather there each week, its members are being encouraged to unseal old doors into their hearts and minds.
“This is Holy Apostles; this is not St. Bartholomew’s,” Gordy, 30, later said. She has since Feb. 1 administered service to those few who remain.
There was no mention that the message was directed at those members of the 1064 Brighton Road church who left, it appears regretfully, about three months ago to form an entirely new church about a mile away, under Anglican authority.
“It’s everything,” Gordy said of the sermon.
For example, while it is important to love thy neighbor, Gordy told the congregation that deciding how that love is realized and even who a person’s neighbors really are root questions that must be asked whether they have steadfast answers or not. But either way, the questions appeared to provoke thinking in new directions, an inventory of the soul.
The overwhelming majority of the former parish there has since established what’s called St. Bartholomew’s Anglican church in a building at 2368 Eggert Road formerly home to Jewish Temple Beth El.
Most simply — and there’s nothing simple about it — a problematic difference in viewpoints regarding homosexual members of the clergy had become an issue throughout the Episcopal Diocese.
St. Bartholomew’s Rev. Arthur Ward Jr., who left along with the majority of his flock, has also pointed to several other disagreements between his rather more conservative mission and the overall Episcopal church as having lingered for years.
Ward, around the time of the split, stressed the concerns raised over the role of homosexuality in the greater church may just have been the final straw. He said also over the last three decades church leaders have fundamentally disagreed on core issues surrounding the virgin birth and whether Christ is the sole means to salvation.
Those members who have since broken away over such issues, however, began withholding donations from the church when the first openly gay bishop was consecrated in 2003.
But some who’ve found themselves suddenly among the minority struggling just to continue at the Brighton Road church, once one of the largest Episcopal churches in the diocese, say the move seemed to come out of nowhere.
“I never got really concerned about this. I thought it would fly by,” said John McKay, 81, who has attended services there for at least 15 years. “And all of a sudden you start getting these letters,” he said regarding literature accompanying the split.
So the new church, despite being formed by those who saw no reason to distance themselves from the diocese and their religion over such matters, was nonetheless encouraged Sunday to give up their standard responses to the old, enduring questions.
“It’s an interesting situation that the Episcopal church is finding itself in more and more,” Gordy said following the service. “How to tend to those left and decide whether there needs to be a (an Episcopal presence) in the Town of Tonawanda.”
Churchgoers also aknowledge times are tough for reasons aside from disagreements on interpreting the Bible, however, in the face of dwindling participation and sometimes rising costs.
“That church can’t hold up on seven or eight people,” McKay said. “The heating bill alone would be astronomical.”
Other sources of financial aid could potentially come from the Episcopal Diocese or private contributions.
Recently, a six-month process began to ultimately determine whether the church can be maintained after losing support and attendance from so many of its members.
To be sure, those who remain are hopeful. And Gordy’s youthful, intellectually stimulating talks seem welcome. The church maintains a blog including transcripts of past sermons at: www.holyapostlesmission.org.
McKay, himself a three-year volunteer at the Town of Tonawanda’s Meals on Wheels program, said he hopes new parishioners, perhaps younger ones, will take a liking to Gordy’s interpretations of the gospel, and perhaps save the church.
“With so few people you get to know everybody,” he said. “She seems to be very dynamic, I love the service, it’s not quite as ‘high’ a service as it was.”
He added he was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago that as many as 40 people showed up, but typically it is less than a third of that.
“It’s making it rather difficult to keep this thing going ... you’ve got to have some help from somewhere,” he said. “(We’re) going to need (younger) people. When you get older you can’t do as much as you want to.”
Another member, Riviera Theatre Director Frank Cannata, summed it up for now:
“It’s more of a community church than a destination church,” he said, noting the familiarity afforded a small group.
During a time for churchgoers to mingle during Sunday’s service the phrase “peace be with you” was offered and offered again between each and every person in attendance.
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