As is the custom here in the south many oncoming cars pulled off the road and stopped to pay the customary respect to the family and the deceased.
I wondered if anyone noticed that there was not a hearse leading the procession in the customary second car position behind the flashing lights of a police car?
I wondered if anyone noted that this funeral procession of some 75 to 80 cars was taking place on a Sunday morning, an unusual time for a funeral.
What appeared to be a funeral procession was actually a wedding procession. A “Service of Witness to the Resurrection” had just taken place as the presbytery commission formally declared the church “closed.” When that commission declared that, “the Southminster and Armstrong Churches are now merged” the funeral became a wedding and “two churches would become one.” While the lingering pain of hearing the words “the church is now closed” were still very fresh in the ears of those present, their spirits became more hope filled — like the kind of pain you feel at a wedding that brings about the inevitable tears.
The seeds for the funeral were sown some twenty years earlier as the Presbytery of Western North Carolina sought to redevelop several small congregations in South Gastonia, N.C. New growth was beginning to filter in slowly as this textile town began to experience transition. Gastonia was in the throes of becoming a bedroom community of Charlotte, N.C. That new growth, however, was being absorbed by few of the existing churches.
Years before redevelopment efforts for those churches failed as would a proposed consolidation of two area churches.
Then, the presbytery, still motivated by an ever-escalating demographic growth in the area, began working toward the development of a new church. Several years passed. Then, having secured funding and an organizing pastor (myself), the new church, given the name Southminster, began worshipping in January 1994. The church was quickly chartered in October 1994 and moved into a new facility on Easter Sunday 1997. Southminster Church now consists of more than 500 members and continues to grow faster than growth can be absorbed and managed.
Four years into her life, the Southminster Session and I sensed that God was calling the church to move into a different direction, to adjust, and to change. Her four-year history had been very traditional. A visioning/discernment process enabled elders and pastor to discern that God was calling the church to move in a new direction as that related to being and doing church in today’s cultural climate. The result was, People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved (Acts 2:47 the Message Version of the Bible).
While Southminster was experiencing rapid growth, the majority of the existing area churches continued to decline and as such were facing uncertain futures. Most of those churches are made up of primarily older members. That reality increased the angst over future viability.
Previous attempts at consolidation no doubt sowed seeds in the minds of the leaders of some of the small churches. Early on in my tenure, I met with some of the leaders of the small churches and invited them, when the day came, to consider a merger with the new church.
That effort was fueled by my memory of what George Anderson, a former student and colleague, had been able to do while pastor of the Briarwood Church of Jackson, Miss., back in the early 1990s. Central Church was experiencing a decline and not being content with a gradual dwindling of both members and resources, decided to become pro-active about its future. While still in a position to determine its future, Central’s Session voted to request that Presbytery act to dissolve the congregation allowing her members to affiliate with the congregation of their choice. Most of the active members chose to unite with the Briarwood Church. Briarwood took extraordinary measures to ensure that those who came from Central were not only welcomed but fully incorporated into the church family.
The Armstrong Memorial Church of Gastonia, N.C., facing a similar decline, decided, with the help of R. Mike Johnston IV who was well versed in the matters related to hospice, to be proactive about their church’s future. Johnston, the director of pastoral care at the large and thriving Gaston Memorial Hospital, said, “Over the last many years, Armstrong’s membership and financial basis has continued to decline. We just didn’t want to go away. We wanted to move forward.”
And so, after many agonizing discussions and conversations among themselves and other church sessions, the Armstrong Church, organized on February 13, 1921, decided to merge with Southminster, the newest church in the Presbytery. During that process the Presbytery was informed and, exhibiting a good measure of wisdom, approved and blessed Armstrong’s desire to determine its own future.
A group of representatives from each church, along with Presbytery representatives, made up an administrative commission to discuss and negotiate the process of disposing of the property and setting up guidelines to channel the proceeds from the sale of property into agreed-upon mission objectives.
And so, on August 14, 2005, a service of Witness to the Resurrection took place at the Armstrong Memorial Church. That service, attended by members of both churches and Presbytery representatives, was characterized by much grief. As Graham Wood, representing the Presbytery, declared, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the authority of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, I now declare this building vacated by the congregation of the Armstrong Memorial Church and the congregation dissolved,” more than a few audible expressions of grief were heard. It must be noted that there were as many Southminster members present who were anguished as there were Armstrong members.
But that funeral service became a courtship leading to marriage as the two congregations processed out of one building, and formed a “funeral procession” or so as many thought, and made their way the three miles south to the Southminster Church.
There an overflow congregation was waiting for the wedding party to arrive. The party arrived as they had left, with sacred items in hand. Those items were delivered into the waiting hands of Southminster elders to be forever cherished as signs of a wedding that had just been consummated.
An old rabbinic legend has it that when a funeral procession and a wedding procession arrive at an intersection at the same time the wedding has the right of way.
As such the newly merged congregations enjoyed their first married meal together afterwards as they celebrated a union that has since proven to be a blessing.
In reflecting a bit on the events of the last more than two years, I think it worth noting that all kinds of things become possible when churches begin sharing some responsibility for one another. It has been my experience that all too often churches operate in an atmosphere of adversarial competition when, in fact, they should be linked, arm in arm, as co-laborers in the Kingdom. Just try to organize a new church anywhere near an existing, declining, or growing church and you will hear a noise that is hardly recognizable and certainly not becoming of any faith community. Even if the existing church hasn’t added a new member to the rolls in years, do not try and move into “their territory.” If churches could begin looking at one another as co-laborers, partners in the “Going, making, baptizing, and teaching of disciples of all nations,” there would be no telling what could happen. Could it be possible that when one church is hurting the others could come to their aid? If demise is immanent in one church perhaps other churches could feel that pain enough to stand together and in so doing help God redeem it all?
That happened with Armstrong and Southminster. The Armstrong folks did not come to Southminster because we had anything in common other than that we were both PC(USA) churches. And so, because the Southminster people felt Armstrong’s pain and were able to genuinely grieve with them, together they began to entertain the possibility of beginning a conversation about a marriage proposal. Those conversations then enabled the Armstrong leaders to feel confident enough about Southminster’s future to trust the “new” church with the resources of the “old” church so as to benefit a growing family of faith. That is redemptive any way you look at it.
By way of a postscript, the past two and a half years of honeymoon and subsequent married life have proved, for the most part, to be blissful. Not all members of Armstrong have been able to cope with married life of two such different partners. The property has been sold. The money realized has been invested in the future of the marriage. About half of the forty or so members who initially agreed to join Southminster have moved on to be part of other congregations that worship more in keeping with their comfort levels. The twenty or so members who remained have found Southminster to be a community of energy and vitality, meaning and joy. And so, to God be the glory for redeeming a funeral and turned it into wedding. With God all things are truly possible.
Jerry D. Bron was the organizing pastor of Southminster Church in Gastonia, N.C., and has been the called pastor since October 1994.
