by Rev. Dr. Jim Warnock
I served in Northern Indiana at Gethsemane Episcopal Church in Marion, a small town in the center of the state. A few miles south of us, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was located in Gas City, a smaller town. It had been founded at the height of a boom in natural gas in the 1890s. Welsh miners organized the parish with the expectation that the gas supply would never end. Great prosperity was expected, but after a decade the gas wells dried up. Gas City remained a very small town dwarfed in size by the slightly larger town of Marion.
St. Paul’s survived for quite a while with a devoted cadre of people descended from those miners. By the end of the 20th Century, however, that original group had declined to about two families. For a while they had a part-time priest who also served a parish in Elwood, a town farther south and located in the Diocese of Indianapolis. It wasn’t enough, and in 2019 the remaining parishioners decided to close their church. The Bishop came and desacralized the parish. The building was sold. It was a sad occasion.
That’s not going to happen here at All Saints’. We had a very productive meeting of the Bishop’s Committee last week, the topic being the future of the parish. Our Canon to the Ordinary, the Rev. Cristy Chapman, attended from the Diocese. Fr. Paul represented the Goshen congregation. We acknowledged that All Saints’ is in slow decline, but we also discussed a slow merger of the two missions in a way that is mutually supportive and beneficial. If this works out, and I think it will, we won’t be desacralizing and selling the building. The columbarium will continue to exist. The windows will remain in place. The Gospel will continue to be preached in two languages.
I encourage you to read the minutes of the meeting. I was very impressed with the willingness of everyone involved to come to a resolution that was Christ-honoring and respective of everyone’s concerns. This is how it needs to be done in the Kingdom of God.
Please come to me with any questions you might have. Details, particularly regarding the parish hall, need to be worked out. Let’s talk about it. Let’s also make it a matter for our prayers, particularly in this Lenten season. Remember that God never leaves us alone, that Lent leads to Easter and resurrection. That will be particularly relevant to All Saints’ this year.