|
||||
|
||||
|
SAYING GOOD-BYE Pastoral Care to Those Whose Congregation is Closing A Reflections column dealing with the decision to close When I first came to Fairdale, the country church in the Parish, Vang Lutheran, was considering closing. Their baptized membership is 38 with some of those members living out of town and some not physically able to attend worship anymore. Average Sunday workshop attendance is 15. The vote in September, however, was to continue as a congregation and as part of the Fairdale parish, and that is what they've done. Now they are, once again, talking about dissolving the congregation. This conversation grew out of the annual meeting where the cold hard financial facts just don't support another year of operation. There is no formal stewardship program in this part of the country - people give to the church depending on crops and weather and many other factors. To ask them to fill out a pledge card would be seen as insulting - as not trusting them to come through with what is needed. In the case of Vang, each year after the annual meeting the president of the congregation and one or tow others have gone visiting and explained the needs for the new year and collected extra funds on the spot. This year they decided not to do that. It is time to face facts, they tell me, as painful as those facts are. The congregation is elderly, most on fixed incomes, and the younger families there cannot be expected to take up the whole load. So, once again, a vote has been called for. This time, most expect it will result in closing. This past week I spent two hours sitting on the floor in my office with old, dusty ledgers spread out on the floor around me. Records of Vang Lutheran Church - some of them close to 100 years old. The earliest are in Norwegian, but, beginning in the early 1920's, they switch to mostly English. The most interesting for me were the daily entries in a log book made by various pastors up to about 1952 detailing the life and activities of the congregation. here I read about ladie's Aid meetings that saw 75 women come together for Bible study and "a delicious lunch". I learned of bad roads that caused "divine worship canceled because no one could get to the church to start the fire". I read of confirmation classes, Luther League, burials, blizzards and baptisms. Christmas programs and Easter services where "the church was filled to overflowing". I learned about a congregational vote taken in 1932 to decide whether to pay the person who had been providing custodial services $19.00 a year. (The vote was affirmative)! I also met in these old faded pages pastors who preached and taught and provided pastoral care in two languages - Norwegian and English. They traveled on roads that weren't paved through all kinds of weather, seemed to have little vacation time, despaired over Sundays when there was low attendance, raised large families on little money and truly found great joy over "one sinner who repented". A rich history of Christian faith in the Lutheran tradition, made up of the day to day and year to year happenings of one small community in Christ on the North Dakota prairie. Please pray for them as they face bringing this to a close. And pray for me as I look to God for guidance in how best to help them through this time. One thing we do not doubt is that the Word of God that has been alive and active in this place continues. Thanks be to God. Sandy |
||||
|
[ SAYING GOOD-BYE ] • [ HOME ] © Copyright 2002 by the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin Resource Center. Please see our usage policy. NW Synod of Wisconsin Resource Center |