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Meeting Notes: Held
at St. Paul’s Sunday 5/6/12 from 3 to 5 PM
1.
Meeting
addressed by 4 representative of Holy Spirit Parish, Fall River, MA – the only
parish to have merged. At the onset,
there were 4 Parishes considering merger but only 3 followed through to the
end. All of the Churches were physically
located in Fall River within a six mile radius of one another. While all of the Churches may have been
considered “neighborhood” churches, few if any members walked to church. All Churches had cradle to grave members with
additional mixtures of younger to older parishioners. One complaint common to all of the Churches
was lack of resources/activities for children and young members. Each Church’s Pastor was at or very near
retirement.
2.
The
merger was solely as a result of financial need by the 3 Parish that merged. One Parish had an endowment but few
parishioners; one had a larger number of parishioners but little or no
endowment to call upon while the last was near closing its doors. One of the existing Parishes was considered
“High”; one “Low” while the third was a mixture of both.
3.
Each Church’s Vestry recognized that church’s
inability to continue operation in the long term and eventually arrived at the
conclusion that a merger was the only viable alternative.
4.
The first step in the process was to discern
what the various congregations had in common.
A schedule was established to attend one another’s churches on a
rotating basis. Each church would stay
“home” for 3 weekends per month then visit and worship at another church one
weekend per month – there was a schedule kept for this purpose.
5.
After much discussion and prayerful reflection,
three of the four Vestries voted to merge.
The fourth opted to go it alone.
Once again there were lengthy discussion and a lot of prayer and
reflection before the Vestries decided that nothing could be accomplished by
general consensus of all of the parishioners of the three Parishes so the
Vestries agree to the creation of a supernumerary “Interchurch Council” which
would make all final decisions after having received input, comments and
recommendations from all of the Churches as the need arose during the decision
making process. To cement the
commitment, each Vestry voted to cede final authority for merger related
decisions to the Interchurch Council and confirmed the vote in writing.
6.
Each Church elected 3 members to sit upon the
Interchurch Council. The Vestries and
Council decided immediately that Clergy from the three Churches would not be
invited into the decision making process because the people not the clergy are
the church.
7.
The
Council met regularly to explore what information was needed to decide the
actual time line and process for merging.
They considered such questions as:
a.
Which
building might be used versus construction or acquiring a new structure. In the end, an existing church was
selected. Alternatives were too
expensive.
b.
How merger related expenses, if any, would be
handled.
c.
What would happen with to objects such as
altars, statues, furnishing, etc.
d.
Staffing
e.
Disposal of excess real estate.
8.
The
Council addressed each issue as the need arose and called upon Diocesan
Resource when and as needed, particularly those dealing with legal issues. Each Sunday, a Council Representative spoke
at their respective church to update the congregation.
9.
The Council picked at date to begin combined
worship at the “new” church which was a date prior to the actual legal merger.
10.
While not every person from the three parishes
was satisfied with all of the decisions made by the Council, a majority of
Parishioners from the three parishes joined the “new” parish. The new parish is growing.
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