How to close a church
St. Philip’s in Moncton is now a cherished memory. The congregation held its last service April 27, with Archbishop David Edwards in attendance for the deconsecration.
In a nod to the past, the offertory hymn was one that was sung at the first St. Philip service almost 70 years ago. The original choir had 34 voices and three of them attended the final service.
St. Philip’s was one of five parishes that amalgamated last year to form the greater Moncton Parish of The Six Saints.
The building has been sold to Faith Christian Fellowship, which has big plans for remodeling it to their needs.
“It’s very bittersweet,” said Judy Briggs. “But since Christmas, Mike and I have been here twice a week, getting rid of things that should have gone years ago. It’s worse than moving a house!”
While parishioners are sad to see their church close, they knew it was inevitable. They’d had amalgamation conversations for years without results.
“Our congregation was declining with age,” said Warrenne Agnew, 86. “The younger generation has moved away for work. It reminds me of when I was young. We had to move away then to find work. History repeats itself.”
It wasn’t so much that the church was being sold, but how to adequately mark such a passage that was on Warrenne’s mind earlier this year.
“I wanted to have a big session, but how do you put 70 years in that?” she asked.
So she put an idea into play: three sessions to mark the years. The three gatherings, after three Sunday services this spring, focused on the early years of the 1950s and 60s; the middle years of the 1970s to the 1990s; and the latest decades, from 2000 onward.
The New Brunswick Anglican visited for the final session, held April 13.
Warrenne collected memorabilia from each time period — scrap books, posters and photos — to display for each gathering, and anyone with stories and memories was invited to share them over coffee and sweets.
The sessions gave everyone a chance to relive the good times and grieve the closure in the company of those who shared their memories and emotions.
“We have laughed and we have cried,” said the Rev. David Alston, the deacon at St. Philip’s. “But the one emotion that stands above all others is the gratitude that God has been so generous to us, and that we continue to be a church group as part of the Parish of The Six Saints.”
In fact, the congregation was doing exactly what synod guidelines suggest: that when closing a church (or a parish) the congregation make time and space to remember and grieve.
Many will attend St. James or St. Andrew in the city.
HISTORY
The Church of St. Philip opened Nov. 1, 1957, one of many new churches built to serve the growing population of baby boomers.
“I was in junior choir,” said Judy. “I started in 1956 across the street at Queen Elizabeth School while things were under construction. We had over 30 people in the choir.
“Bishop O’Neill came for the dedication. Back then the church was full. On Christmas Eve it was standing room only.”
She and husband Mike were married there in 1984, lived away from New Brunswick for many years, and returned to Moncton, and St. Philip, in 2006.
One of her fondest memories is of Sunday school picnics.
“We were a busload of screaming, singing kids, all the way out and all the way back from the church in Shediac!” she said.
Like many fellow parishioners, Keitha Sobey and her husband, Ashley, were married at St. Philip.
“We eloped, and had four people at our wedding,” she said. “Rev. Hyde married us.”
St. Philip was the backdrop for all their major family events. Their babies were baptised there in 1967, 1970 and 1974, and their son’s funeral was held there in 1992.
Warrenne described herself as “part of the history, part of the woodwork” of St. Philip, having held many positions over the years, everything but treasurer and warden.
She and her husband began attending in 1965, “and we’ve been here ever since.” They celebrated 70 years of marriage recently.
Joyce McKillop is happy to know that the quilting group at St. Philip will live on.
“We’ve moved our quilting group to St. James,” she said. “We’ve been there two weeks. The people are great. We were welcomed with open arms. They made space for us.”
The group has produced more than 75 quilts in the past seven or eight years, giving the majority away to local charities that care for the most needy in the city, like the Humanity Project and Crossroads for Women.
“We’ll do the same thing [at St. James] as we’ve done here,” she said.
Y2K & APPLE PIES
As the world went to bed on Dec. 31, 1999, worried about the collapse of the world’s infrastructure and computer systems due to a computer glitch, Warrenne had something completely different on his mind: the fuel bill at St. Philip.
“I prayed and I prayed, ‘Lord, show me what we can do.’ More money had to be made.”
She had a dream and ignored it. She had it again — a dream about apple pies.
“Three or four days later, I was jolted out of my sleep with a voice saying ‘you can do it.’ I thought it was my husband.”
Warrenne already had experience making a lot of apple pies because family members got together to make 100 at a time. So she conceded that God was pushing her towards a new project as an answer to her prayers.
“I wrote out what we’d need for 300 pies and went to Fr. Kevin [Borthwick],” she said, adding he was enthusiastic about the plan.
It was May by the time Warrenne spoke to the congregation about the project. She was aiming for 500 pies, but told the congregation 300.
While one man told her, ‘Warrenne, I thought you were a smart cookie, but I think you’ve lost your marbles,’ eight people showed up for the planning meeting.
“I gave them a slip of paper with items on it and we checked off what they could supply: bowls, rolling pins. We had all summer to collect the items.”
And so the famous apple pie project was born, with Warrenne leading it for the next five years.
For one week, volunteers worked one, or more, of three shifts a day, peeling, chopping, mixing pastry, rolling it out, filling the pies, and so on.
On that first week, everyone was focused on reaching 300 pies, but Warrenne was cagey about the numbers. When she finally admitted they’d made 300 pies, she pointed to the remaining ingredients and said, ‘But we’ve got all this stuff. We can’t let to go to waste.”
By Sunday morning, the congregation was breathless in anticipation of the final report. How many pies had they made?
“We made 997 pies! It not only paid the bill, it set us up nicely for the year to come,” she said.
The naysayer approached her after church with an apology of sorts: ‘By damn, Warrenne, you’re good!’
Ashley took over for the last 20 years of the project. One year they reached 3,700 pies.
“We put together an assembly line with 20 people,” he said. “Everybody had a role to play.”
Many helpers were called upon, and several were not even church-goers.
“It was so much fun,” said Warrenne. “Family, friends, neighbours, even strangers who’d heard about it came and helped us.”
Over the years, they introduced innovative tools to make the process easier and found efficiencies to cut waste. They calculated they used 35,000 apples in a week, which arrived by the truckload.
For a time they had high school students looking for real life experience working the line.
“They were great,” said Ashley. “It was a great project and very successful.”
The project was set to go again during the pandemic, but the Health Department wouldn’t allow it. They had one final year after the pandemic, but by then the momentum was gone and the project ended.
“The time was up, really,” said Ashley. “We were all getting older, but we missed it.”
But the apple pie project did a great deal of good — in the church, in the community and in the world.
St. Philip was able to sponsor refugees from Kosovo, put on a Christmas dinner for everyone in the city without family, sew 580 dresses and shorts from pillowcases for the people of Haiti, support needy churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo, provide school supplies to many students, and many other outreach projects.
The apple pie years are one of the many precious memories the people of St. Philip hold dear as they transition to a new home.
They are thankful for the continuity their leaders will provide, with the Rev. Rob Salloum, and with David, who will serve at both St. Andrew’s and St. James.
DAVID ALSTON
“It is difficult to see the good side of closing a beloved building, particularly one that holds so many memories,” said David.
“After many meetings, and our experience of worshipping together regularly with the other neighbouring churches, we were led to a level of comfort that made it possible for us to look frankly at our economics and recognize the limitations in supporting the church building, even though we were dismayed at the thought of selling.”
He and wife, Noeline, had worshipped at St. Philip for more than 20 years, with his last nine as deacon. So it was as emotional for him as it was for his parishioners.
But in coming together to remember the past decades, they managed to find much for which they were thankful, what David calls, “an opportunity to praise God.”
ROB SALLOUM
Rob is proud of the outreach that has come from St. Philip, both locally and globally, and the many people who had a hand in those projects.
“While significant ministry has been done in the church, I want to simply acknowledge and thank the many dear souls who have faithfully served the Lord in St Philip’s Church over the nearly 70 years in the heart of Moncton,” he said.
“Thank you to all the clergy who humbly guided, taught and provided leadership in this place.
“So, as we look back with gratitude for all of God’s blessings, we also stand on our tiptoes in great anticipation for what God has for us next.”
To watch the deconsecration service, click this link: https://vimeo.com/1079172622?share=copy#t=0
Photo captions:
1. Warrenne Agnew tapes poster board to a wall in the basement of St. Philip's Church in Moncton a few minutes before the Palm Sunday service on April 13. This was the final day the congregation would meet to share old times, one of three sessions to help ease the transition as the church was deconsecrated and the building sold.
2. Warrenne Agnew shows some of the baking tools used during the apple pie years at St. Philip. Those gathered, and seen here, included the Rev. Rob Salloum, the Rev. David Alston, Keitha Sobey, Ashley Sobey and Mike Briggs. 3. Mike and Judy Briggs were married at St. Philp in 1984.
4. A bulletin board with memories of the apple pie fundraising years.
McKnight photos