It doesn’t need to be a Christian institution, necessarily. It could be any community of faith that has established a physical location. In one generation it made absolutely sense to create this space and for years the gathering of people and their familiar rituals was an integral part of community life. It was expected, assumed, and for many people: valued.
You won’t be surprised that this is the news that provoked my question:
Howard County mill town vanished long ago. Its final relic will soon close. April Santana, Baltimore Sun
Left to right; former Howard County Police Chief, County Executive and state Sen. Jim Robey, Victoria Goodman, and Gary Rudacille, are members of Gary Memorial Methodist Church. The last remaining intact structure of Daniels, the Gary Memorial United Methodist Church, is closing its doors.
(I accessed this article through the Howard County Library website.)
I’m not here to pass judgement on whether houses of worship closing is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t even know if it’s a sign that people have less religious faith than they used to. I do think that the kind of assumption that one must be a member in good standing in order to be a respected part of one’s larger civic community does not exist anymore.
Yes, we want to believe that it is faith alone that draws members and sustains religious communities. (Or maybe that’s just me.) In recent years I’ve done a lot of rethinking about that.* Many of the physical church structures in the U.S. were built and peopled in a culture for whom not going to church would have been unthinkable and possibly damaging to their social standing and career success.
I’ve watched church communities shrink and eventually close throughout my adult life, especially in the last ten years or so. Some have tried everything they could think of to stay afloat. Some haven’t. Some are like that old line in the song:
I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.
And by “that” I mean reaching outside their comfort zones or making space for other voices.
I don’t mean to simplify this topic at all. It is assuredly a multi-faceted question: what keeps a church alive?
I do think that people are looking for community. They are willing to share their resources with others. They want to be a part of something where their gifts are acknowledged and valued. They want to connect in a meaningful way with their neighbors. They want a time apart from the endless drive of work and consumerism. They want time to quiet their thoughts and reach for the goodness that truly matters to them.
I see that from the kinds of initiatives that those folks are creating and sustaining right here in Columbia/HoCo. But they don’t look like mainline Protestant Church buildings and their accompanying assumptions and requirements. (Not to mention the ever-increasing maintenance of an aging physical plant.)
I worry when I see churches insist they want to keep their church alive into the future while wanting, like Queen Victoria, to keep everything the way her dead spouse Albert had left it. That’s not a church, it’s a museum. Or possibly a mausoleum. But that’s the same problem I have with Columbia purists, too.
I just don’t know.
Losing a place you love - - which was more than just a building but also a community and a way of life - - is heartbreaking. My heart goes out to the folks who will grieve the loss of Gary Memorial.
And still I wonder: what keeps a church alive?
*Shoutout to the Rev’d Lura Groen
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