The Rev. Frances A. Hills
Well, I can’t say it was just another ordinary year here at sunny St. James…
What a year we’ve had together!
If your remember a year ago we had Three Committees gathering as much information as possible in a necessarily short period of time, To help us discern a way forward. The committees were very well-run and did good work. We heard their final reports at a parish meeting on Feb. 23. At that meeting, everyone had an opportunity to write what they thought was helpful and not helpful about each committee’s plan. Everyone also had an opportunity to write what they felt God was calling us to do. We had so hoped that through that process a way forward would be clear. But it wasn’t. About half the congregation was interested in trying to restore the building, and the other half, although they had various solutions, did not want to restore the building. The idea of taking down the building was almost too painful for anyone to think about for very long, although our insurance would most probably have covered the costs of demolition & clearing. Given our financial situation, either restoring the building or building something new seemed out of reach. It was a terrible place to be, and all the while, the insurance company was breathing down our necks threatening to cancel our insurance. On top of that, the Diocese would not let us keep the building up, if it wasn’t insured.
To keep the insurance company from cancelling our insurance, we had to make a monthly report to them during 2010, telling them the progress we’d made toward resolution. By working at a resolution and sending in our reports, we negotiated three extensions on the insurance last year. Then on Feb. 24, we received an offer to buy the building from an anonymous non-profit. Of course now we know the non-profit is St. James Place (SJP), headed by our own Sally and Fred Harris. The spring and summer was spent in negotiations…Lots of back and forth. The sale price was going to be $390,000, until, as a result of the survey, we discovered there was ½-acre less property than the Town records had indicated. We went back to negotiations and settled on $300,000. The sales price was derived from the value of the property cleared (~$700,000) less the cost of demolition and removal f the building (~$400,000).
Although there was quite a bit of conversation early on in the negotiations
about this being a Purchase-Sale-Lease Agreement, when the Vestry received
the actual documents, it was only a Purchase & Sale Agreement. There was no part of the agreement that included the parish of St. James leasing back the building.
You need to know that.
There is a possibility of the Parish leasing the worship space for worship or perhaps for weddings and funerals, if we decide that is the best thing to do.
But I also know that SJP is exploring at lots of exciting ways the building might be used otherwise. The Vestry has invited SJP, when they’re ready, to present a power-point about the building use options they are exploring at Crissey Farm after church. At this time it seems there would not be space for parish offices or storage or classrooms that we could leave set-up in the Parish House. There are lots of questions, and certainly one of them is a time frame for when the building might be useable.
Now I’ve mentioned that our insurance would most probably have covered the $400,000 demolition of the building and clearing of the lot. Had we gone that route, the parish would now have a prime piece of cleared real estate valued at $700,000. But the Vestry of this congregation did not choose to go that route. We didn’t take that option because we know the importance of that 150-year-old building to the people of this parish and to the Town. So, as a parish we sacrificed perhaps $400,000 because we very much want SJP to succeed—regardless of whether this congregation uses the building again or not. You need to know that.
And I also want you to know there was the possibility of another option. In June a person came to me and said he would very much like to buy the property for about $700,000, as is. That was at a time when we were in good-faith negotiations with SJP. Again sacrificing about $400,000, the parish supported the dream of SJP and did not pursue this informal offer, because we want SJP to happen—regardless of whether the congregation ever uses that building again. You need to know that.
Now I know I’ve talked a lot about the building sale today because I think those things really needed to be said, and I hope they were heard.
The year 2010 had a lot of other things happening in the life of this congregation
as well. At our Vestry Retreat in January, we drafted a Missional Challenge Question:“How does St. James become a Christian community relevant to youth, young parents, and the next generation by taking God’s gifts of nurturing and hospitality out to the unchurched?”
We worked on this through Gideon’s Garden. There we found God’s mission in a variety of surprising ways. In 2010, with the leadership of Pennie Curry and Brendan Farnam, our church developed some amazing relationships with the WIC Program (Through Community Health Programs); with B.R.I.D.G.E., especially through their multi-cultural children’s camp; with the Rail Road St. Youth; People’s Pantry, and Breaking Bread Kitchen. With several community organizations, we helped write and sponsor a grant to help eradicate hunger in South County. If you were at the Sunday service on Oct. 10, you heard about the kinds of Friendship, Growth, Knowledge, Mentoring, Compassion, and Responsibility that’s being cultivated in that missional garden, as well as vegetables to feed hungry people.
In 2010 during Lent at Crissey Farm, we shared “A Season of Common Worship” with Christ Church Episcopal-Trinity Lutheran, St. Paul, Good Shepherd, and St. George. Many thought this was a wonderful coming together of Episcopalians from South Berkshire County, so some of us joined together again during Advent.
St. George and St. James were the “regulars”, and CCE-TLC joined us for one Sunday. A highlight of Advent was our joining St. George in Lee for their last service with their Rector Donna Trebilcox and the last Sunday service in their church. Since St. Paul and Good Shepherd are listening to God’s Spirit and finding their way in a new relationship together, they did not choose to interrupt that by being part of the Advent worship. However, we did join St. Paul in Stockbridge on Christmas Day and the Sunday following. During Epiphany we have extended our common worship with St. George Lee, and they will be worshiping with us for the time being.
We will continue our conversations with St. George and see how the Spirit leads us in terms of our possibly coming together in a more formal way. For now this is just a conversation. Nothing has been “decided”. You need to know that.
It is a joy and privilege to welcome the people of St. George into this community, as they grieve the loss of their rector and eventually their buildings; and look forward with vision and courage to what God has in store for them next.
Something else about 2010 I’d like to highlight is the Artist of the Month Program.
We have just completed three-years of this wonderful, life-giving program that came to us as a gift from the creative soul of Charlene Peet. The Artist of the Month Program is now having a little “hiatus” as the Spirit helps it regroup.
Back three years ago, Charlene came to me with a dream that it would be wonderful to invite people in the parish to share their art, and to ask them to tell us how they felt God might be working through their creativity. I don’t think any of us could have imagined…First of all how much incredible talent there is among us!
And how many people were willing to grace us with their gifts. Or what a rich addition to our Coffee Hours the artist program would be. Or how many of us started getting to get to know each other in a very different, deeper way---Seeing art and talking about it. I imagine some of you have worshipped with some of these artists for years and had no idea they created such beautiful things! Charlene, my prayer is that the Artist of the Month program will find the new life, direction, and leadership you are hoping for. But for now…THANK YOU. THANK YOU for blessing St. James with this amazing program!
You know it’s really incredible how we have carried on here at Crissey Farm . . . for 2 ½ years now. That is thanks to each one of you who faithfully continue to worship with this community and participate in God’s work.
I especially want to acknowledge the choir and our Minister of Music Charles Olegar for bringing us the Good News week after week in song and music, bells,
horn, drum, harp, strings, and even kazoo! We are indeed blessed by such remarkable, faithful and creative musicians.
And behind the scenes our Parish Secretary Bonnie Weiland continues to work at home to produce our bulletins and coordinate our ROTA schedules.
Thanks go as well to Fairview Hospital for letting us do most of our copying there (many hundreds of dollars) and for hosting our Executive Committee and Vestry meetings.
Now just think about what all it takes to create our worship experience here at Crissey Farm! Our thanks to Gary and Andrew, the owners, who make this space available to us. We’re also really thankful this year to Rick from Crissey Farm, who is helping us with the heavy set up and take down each week.
Then there’s our great Hospitality, Altar Guild, Ushers, Greeters, Lectors, Prayer Writers, Acolytes, Chalice Bearers, Healing Ministers. Those who help set up, take down, and clean up. And those yummy coffee hours! ‘Special thanks to our Christian formation teachers, who quietly give up their own worship time to nurture our children in the faith.
We also owe our thanks to Wheeler & Taylor who provide a space for our Thursday Eucharist free of charge.
And I want to say thank you to the Vestry for their time, talent, wisdom and dedication during a very challenging year. Finally, our Executive COMMITTEE.
There’s no way to tell you How many hours, How much talent, How much grace
These four people have given to this parish this year. It is not many Vestries and Executive Committees that ever have the experience of selling a church. Now we all know more about insurance, appraisals, and attorneys than we ever wanted to know! These four have been so FAITHFUL and LOVING and GOOD SPIRITED and WISE, that I hope you will join me in a huge show of thanks….
As St. James Episcopal Church, Great Barrington, we enter 2011 with lots of unknowns. The world around us has seen seismic changes in areas from technology to globalization. The world of the Church—Not just St. James, but all Churches—has also changed immensely. I’m reading a book now (Missional Map Makers, Alan Roxburg)h that talks about how strategic planning, which many of us are very experienced and good at, just doesn’t work anymore. The kinds of challenges and questions that need our attention just don’t fit into a neat box of Goal and Objectives.
But although the world and church are changing in unprecedented ways, we can face the future with courage because God has brought us through some really hard times, and we can trust God will continue to be with us and guide us as we continue to seek the future God has in mind for us. That’s what missional thinking is all about…Realizing it’s God who has the mission, already, and we don’t have to invent it (what a relief!). What we are called to do is to listen to scripture, each other and our community; and to discern God’s mission in our own time and place…AND THEN TO JOIN IT!
We’ve already experienced this through Gideon’s Garden. We’ve seen the Spirit move there in mighty ways. So I charge all of us to keep our eyes, ears and hearts
open and listening to the next place God calls us. Related to this, I’d like to leave you with a quote I just read, “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission that has a church in the world…God is on the move and the church is always catching up with him. We join his mission. We should not ask him to join ours.” (Quoted in Dwight Zschelle paper p. 167. From Journal of Religious Leadership)
My prayer for St. James in 2011, as we prepare for our 250th Celebration in 2012,
is that we will gladly join God’s mission of forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and love and be signs of these to this sinful and broken world. Thank you.
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