Posted on 01/17/2010 8:30:13 PM PST by hiho hiho
There is no hospice for congregations facing the end of their days. No advanced directives telling caregivers when to take action and when to let go.
Dying people make out wills to direct the inheritance of their remaining possessions, but there is no legal equivalent for a dying church. Jewish tradition directs fathers to write ethical wills that explain the values by which they have led their lives, to be read by their children after they pass.
But when a church dies, there is no one left to do the reading.
On a chilly Sunday morning, congregants of Eastminster Presbyterian Church gather together to pray in their Northeast Halsey Street chapel. They shed their heavy coats and hats and set them on empty seats. Smiles abound. Many seem to visibly relax as they greet old friends with a gentle hand on a shoulder or a quick embrace. Here they have found sanctuary.
And, too, the people of Eastminster are more vulnerable than most to the harsh realities of an unforgiving Columbia River Gorge wind. They are old.
Thirty-five years ago, Eastminster was a vibrant church, with two services because the sanctuary was not large enough to contain the crowd. In 1972, the church had 450 members and 250 children in Sunday School.
This Sunday, there are fewer than 30 people attending services. The congregation’s average age, according to the church’s latest survey, is 79.
In February, the church’s Session – essentially its board of directors – will meet in the culmination of a three-month process intended to guide Eastminster’s future. The most likely option is that some plan will be put in place leading to the closing of the church.
Portland is often referred to as the least-churched city in the country, and while national statistics show a few areas of New England and the West reporting similarly low or even lower numbers of religious observance, Eastminster’s story is a tale about local attitudes toward organized religion and spirituality.
There are explanations for Eastminster’s failing attendance and unsustainable economics, and for the fact that none of the adult children of these elderly parishioners are bringing their own families into the church where they grew up. Those same explanations have been cited in dozens of local churches that have either sold their properties or evolved into different entities.
Eastminster’s pastor, Brian Heron, says he knows of two local Presbyterian churches that have closed in recent years, and he estimates that at least a dozen others are facing similar situations.
“They’re all just hanging by a thread, surviving month to month, year to year,” Heron says.
David Leslie, executive director of nonprofit Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, a statewide association of churches, says there is no precise count of how many Portland-area churches have failed, but many are searching for new models as a way of staying alive. Some rent space to community organizations; others have sold their buildings to nonprofits and simply pay rent to hold services.
Leslie says it is likely that in the future there will be church buildings shared by three or four congregations.
Some of the failing churches are simply victims of changing neighborhoods, Leslie says.
“At the base of this is the eternal reality that nothing is permanent,” Leslie says. “You look around Portland communities, some neighborhoods were middle class and they became lower income, and some of those neighborhoods became high income. A lot of it is demographic change, economics shifting.
“If the question comes back to why are some of these churches on life support, I think the fundamental question is how in tune are they to the question of who is my neighbor? Is the church a place that is doing constant outreach to the neighborhood and the people who are around the church?”
Like a family That, more than any other factor, helps explain what has happened at Eastminster. The church last year adopted a slogan, “A Caring Community in a Changing World.” For most of the past 55 years, that caring has been focused in one direction – inward. In the process, congregants neglected the invigoration that comes from opening their doors to the world outside.
Barbara Rock, Eastminster’s last remaining charter member, remembers the day in 1954 when a minister knocked on her door saying he wanted to start a church in her neighborhood. By the end of that year a charter had been signed by about two dozen people in a makeshift chapel in her basement, with curtains hiding the plumbing pipes, a picture of Jesus temporarily attached to a curtain and a gathering of children off to one side.
“It was like a family,” Rock says. “All young couples with little children, and we all had the same things in common – not much money and the church was our social life.”
In 1960, Rock moved to Northern California. When she returned in 1983, going back to Eastminster felt like coming home. She loved the fact that the church looked exactly the same as when she had left. New faces and new programs to attract young members were not what she was hoping to find.
“We were looking for a haven. We were looking for peace and our friends,” Rock says.
Jerome and Lucile Harden needed and found comfort in the Eastminster community when their daughter Debbie died suddenly in 1991. Church members brought meals to their house and all the companionship the couple needed. Friendships deepened.
Having dealt with a much greater loss, the Hardens are able to face possibility of Eastminster closing philosophically.
“I personally don’t really see us surviving,” says Jerome. “It’s sad because that building, that community, has been a part of our life for 30 years. But that doesn’t mean you stop living. Life goes on.”
Longtime congregant Walter Lersch says hiring Heron was among the best moves ever made by the Eastminster parishioners. But it happened way too late.
“When our children were little I saw the problem. I felt we were going to die,” Lersch says. “A lot of people had left, and nobody new was coming in. This was 20 years ago.”
Lersch and others say there were discussions, but nobody in the congregation was willing to take the lead toward a more open and inviting church. The parishioners of Eastminster grew old together.
But new members did not solely have to come from the outside. There were always those children.
“We’ve lost two generations,” Lersch says. “We’ve lost our own children, and we have lost our children’s children.”
Going through cycles Lersch and his wife, Florence, met at Eastminster. She was in the choir and he started attending services on his own in 1978. They raised their children there, among them daughter Christine Yanik, who has children of her own with husband Grant.
Christine says she would never raise her two children there, though she reluctantly allows her parents to take their grandchildren to Eastminster some Sunday mornings.
In some ways, the reasons Christine gives for rejecting Eastminster put her smack in the middle of her own generation and Pacific Northwest attitudes toward religion. She and Grant talk about believing in a divine being, and exploring their own version of spirituality, combining elements of Wicca, Buddhism and other religions they have studied.
Nearly all their friends classify themselves as spiritual without formally attending a church, synagogue or mosque.
What Christine found most off-putting about Eastminster is the very thing that Barbara Rock longed for when she returned from California, and found at Eastminster – familiar faces, familiar liturgy and real community.
“Everything goes through cycles,” Yanik says. “You’re born, you start to grow, you get smarter. With that comes maturing and change. Eastminster never changes. It never grew; it never matured.”
All those years Christine saw her parents comfort other congregants during times of need, and finding fellowship with their Eastminster friends. But it always seemed to her that, given the message of the religion, it wasn’t enough.
She heard the minister talk about welcoming in the stranger, and taking care of the poor. But Yanik didn’t see that happening through church activities. Nobody was offering to shelter the homeless on Burnside, or feed the hungry of outer east side Portland.
“They’re very good about taking care of each other, but it’s taking care of each other, not helping take care of the community,” Yanik says.
Lersch says his daughter could be right, and that he has learned a lesson, even if it may be too late to save Eastminster.
“We understand now that our community changed and we didn’t,” he says.
Changed thinking Ironically, Eastminster has changed. Three years ago, the church hired Brian Heron to take them through the process of either facing its final days, or emerging as something different. Members of Eastminster didn’t just want to let their church die, Heron says. At the very least they wanted to leave a legacy, something to mark what they had been.
Heron talks to congregants about learning to let go of their church as they have known it. Years ago, in California, Heron ministered in a hospice, helping dying patients through the last days of their lives. He knows this process. But he isn’t ready yet to declare Eastminster lifeless. Not quite.
Maybe there’s another congregation out there, he says, which lacks a building but could supply members in the space-sharing model predicted by David Leslie of Ecumenical Ministries.
Maybe a younger, homeless congregation will come to worship with the members of Eastminster, and eventually take over the building.
Maybe all of this could be combined with using Eastminster’s three acres of property and empty classrooms for community gardens and housing the homeless, and make up for some of those years when such ideas were largely ignored.
Heron has also introduced a much more progressive, and liberal form of Christianity to Eastminster, and has found his ideas welcomed. The traditional Sunday morning Bible reading now is accompanied by a second reading from sources that have included Buddhist text and children’s books.
“I’m just amazed at how our thinking has changed,” says Florence Lersch about Heron’s leadership.
On Feb. 14, Eastminster’s three months of introspection and planning culminates in a meeting of the church’s governing Session. Whatever is decided, the choice need not be viewed as tragic, or even failing, says Heron.
“Part of (Christianity’s) story is a story of death and resurrection,” Heron says. “We’re trying to trust that process. We don’t have to fight death. We can face it, we can move through it, and live through it gracefully and see what new life looks like on the other side.”
Nah. I stopped going years ago. I wanted to be inspired. Not depressed.
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
Conquer the angry man by love.
Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness.
Conquer the miser with generosity.
Conquer the liar with truth.
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
I fail to see how something like that would close a church. Aren’t those pretty much in keeping with Christian ideals? If someone quoted them but didn’t say they were Buddhist, I doubt any Christian would have a problem with them.
” It makes one no less a Christian to understand the differences and similarities in other religions. That is not a conversion to what they believe and a rejection of ones Christianity, but rather a strengthening of ones own beliefs.”
I wholeheartedly agree.
I'd be thrilled, because they would be coming closer to Truth. But then again, Buddhism doesn't express itself in an exclusive manner like Christianity does.
I think to reject such as this out of hand is something that is short-sighted. It makes one no less a Christian to understand the differences and similarities in other religions. That is not a conversion to what they believe and a rejection of ones Christianity, but rather a strengthening of ones own beliefs.
Pointing out similarities and differences is laudable, but that doesn't make it right to put the writings of pagans (righteous ones perhaps, but pagans nonetheless), on the same level as divinely-inspired Scripture. In addition, there are some teachings/presuppositions of Buddhism that are in complete contrast to Christianity - which can be the beginning of weakening one's Christian faith.
Understood in a completely Christian context, that particular passage seems fairly harmless, that I will agree with. It isn't in open contradiction with Scripture (though I might say that the highest quality is seeking to serve God; serving others flows from serving God).
But that still doesn't mean that it should be read from the pulpit in a Christian Church in a manner that makes it seem equal to Scripture - because it isn't Scripture. There is plenty of beautiful poetry and beautiful wisdom in the writings of the Old and New Testaments.
As a former Presbyterian (PCUSA), I could tell you that the property is not owned by the church, but the Presbytery, which is the local organization of churches.
I left my former church (PCUSA) for reasons such as this. I come to church to hear the Gospel, not other religious teaching. If I were interested in other religious teachings (which I am from an informational perspective), I would read a book or take a continuing education course. Churches are for leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ — not making sure they understand Buddhism.
This is why “mainline” churches are dwindling. They have lost sight of their mission.
“I didn’t feel that way when I went to church. Listening to sermons, it felt pretty useless to try. I’m not sure that’s how you should feel when you go to church.”
I don’t mean to be glib here and I know this question could be taken that way. I mean it as a serious question. Useless to try what?
I didn’t leave my church, it left me.
The sermon on global warming & saving the poor dying polar bears did it for me.
Holy Rosary, not far from downtown Portland, packs ‘em in pretty good.
But it’s not watered-down, liberal Christianity, which is what you find at these dying congregations.
“She and Grant talk about believing in a divine being, and exploring their own version of spirituality, combining elements of Wicca, Buddhism and other religions they have studied.”
Why not worship Zero, your true god?
When liberalism starts creeping in, it affects everything just like a runaway cancer.
This is very sad but is representative of why many parts of Western Civilization is dying. Recognizing that is the first step to turning things around.
lol. You're right. Who'd think there would be two Eastminster Presbyterian Churches?
Here ya go:
http://www.eastminsterpdx.org/
Try a Southern Baptist church. There are many, many ex-Presbyterians who have joined, including myself.
Read by a sodomite.
Buddhism is not a religion per se. It is more of a philosophy.
I would not welcome Buddhist readings in my church, neither Islamic nor Hindu. If one wants to understand the differences and such, there are plaenty of books to read, those ‘teachings’ do not belong in Christian worship.
Similarly, I ‘ll warrant that in your local mosque, not only would proclaiming Jesus to be the Son of God and the Saviour of mankind not be appreciated, it might be met with physical ‘resistance’. If a ‘philosophy’ wants to also discuss Christ, I say more power to them. But non-Christ teachings do not belong in church.
By whom?
Yup. Clearly they weren't able to recruit new members to their church, and the lame preaching may be part of the reason. You'll note that churches with dynamic preachers and vigorous instruction in the Scripture rarely have any trouble attracting parishioners. The churches near me that preach the Gospel have jammed parking lots for numerous services and have to keep building larger and larger facilities to accommodate the crowds that demand to hear the Word.
Buddhism may have wisdom to impart to us, but people who come to church, particularly older people, are probably going to the trouble to come out on a Sunday morning because they want some direction on how to grow closer to the Lord our God. Buddhism by its very nature is not going to teach that. Neither will material from children's books. You, Tainan, may like to hear these things, and that's your right, but it's evident that this church died because only a few people liked what they were hearing and learning there.
http://www.eastminsterpdx.org/
I just went to their site and looked at one of their sermons from last year. There were no references to any Bible scriptures. The pastor mentioned Jesus once in passing. And the majority of the sermon was about current political events. People don’t go to church for that. They go (or should go) to hear God’s word preached. These liberal churches are dying because the people are flocking to real churches where God’s word is preached.
You mean the one with no doctrine that sings five contemporary feel good worship songs, followed by a sermon from the celebrity Pastor that makes the congregation feel great about themselves.
No harm or foul on you r witness, we all should be doing that, as well as we can, in ways Christ would.
The article was about the spreading or teaching or reading of alternative ‘faiths’ in a ‘Christian’ church. That is just not a good thing at all, seems to me, that would more than constitute a ‘luke warm’ church, which Christ says (in Revelation) makes Him want to vomit it from His mouth.
Church should be for preaching the Gospel and Christ. Not giving equal time to other religions or philosphies that lead people to Hell. Buddhism is great, as long as you are willing to go to Hell believing in it. As is Islam, or Hinduism or Gaia worship or Wicca. Pick your poison.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.