Requiem for Grace Episcopal Church, Clarksville

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          Did you happen to see the article in the Sunday, January 26^th, edition of the Post Dispatch about the couple who bought a closed Episcopal Church in Clarksville and converted it into their residence?  I was looking through the paper that day for the sports section when my eyes fell upon a headline which grabbed my attention. It said: Episcopal Church. As a lifelong Episcopalian and Episcopal clergyman, I was very interested. At first glance, the headline was a bit misleading. In full, it actually read: COUPLE CREATE A NEW HOUSE OUT OF AN   EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Very clever visually! Why the extra large print for Episcopal Church? What was the message?

            The article went on to relate how a couple from Ladue, Kirk and Mary Ostertag, had in 2011 purchased a shuttered Episcopal Church in Clarksville, Missouri. I was somewhat bemused by the fact that the couple’s last name “Ostertag” is a conjunction (joining) of two German words which together mean “Easter Day.” Isn’t there some irony here? People named “Easter Day” living in a former church building!

            One was able to glean from the article that Grace Episcopal Church in Clarksville, Missouri had had quite a history. It had been founded in 1869 a few years after the end of the Civil War. The building which was sold to the Ostertags was constructed in 1940. That is also an interesting story. The church building was designed, constructed, and paid for through the efforts of one individual, a St. Louis surgeon named Dr. Malvern Clopton who must have had some connection with Clarksville. Perhaps he grew up there? The article doesn’t tell us. Whatever the reason, it was quite an act of individual generosity! The article went on to say that the church had been closed for three years when the Ostertags purchased it in 2011. Grace Episcopal Church had a congregation of only four people in 2008 when they decided to close their doors. The Canon to the Ordinary in the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, Dan Smith, is quoted in the article as saying, “Some of these smaller churches just can’t keep going like years ago.” That is something of an understatement. Maintenance costs on a building that seated 100 people must have been eating them alive. A congregation of four people! Unfortunately small towns and churches have life cycles and the church in Clarksville fits the classic pattern.

            In the late 18^th century when the United States was founded, ninety-nine percent of the people lived on farms and one percent in cities. Today the situation is completely reversed. Less than one percent lives on farms and ninety-nine percent live in cities. Throughout history, there has been a continuing, accelerating movement from rural areas to the larger cities. This demographic has been disastrous for rural and small town churches.  I would guess that the average age of those four remaining communicants when they closed was probably around eighty. Young people are rarely found in small town congregations. They have either moved to the larger cities where there is employment opportunity or they are no longer interested in church involvement. Secular culture today exerts a powerful pull against active church membership for the young.   

            I have to say that I found this article a bit irritating. The message in the setup of the headline is plain (at least to me) and speaks volumes. There is more than a little secular triumphalism in this story about a closed church being converted to a residence. In my mind, we live in a world in which things or institutions of substantial value are passing away to be replaced by superficial substitutes. Let me say that another way. In a world hungry for lasting meaning, we should be creating more sacred space, not deconsecrating the little that we have.

            My reasoning would follow this line. Grace Episcopal Church in Clarksville was a parish church that could look back on almost one hundred and forty years of congregational life when it closed its doors in 2008. Just think of all the faithful people who gathered there Sunday after Sunday for all those years to hear the Word of God read and preached and to worship according to the “stately, measured cadences” of the Book of Common Prayer. How many adult lives were strengthened there and uplifted there? How many children over those years attended Sunday School and learned all the familiar bible stories about Jesus in the Undercroft (basement) of the church?  Just think of all the people who were baptized, confirmed, and married in Grace Church and who, at the end of their lives, were buried  from there! I can stand in a church building when it is empty and hear the faint echoes of all the Christmas Eve and Easter services that have been celebrated there. A parish church building is a monument not only to Jesus Christ but also to the commitment of all the people who invested significant portions of their lives there.

            Parish churches like Grace were once the ethical foundations of small towns like Clarksville. They provided a spiritual leaven in communities which called out the best qualities in people.  They also provided opportunities for much needed fellowship. How many hours did the church women spend working in the church kitchen serving – God only knows – how many potluck dinners? The unasked and unanswered question in the article is this: just what has replaced the Christian presence of Grace Church in Clarksville? Sadly, the answer to that one is all too obvious. It seems to be a reversal of the beloved prayer from the Good Friday service, “. . .; let the whole world see and know that things that were cast down are being raised up and things that had grown old are being made new. . .”

            I am certainly more than aware that we are living in a world and society which is rapidly changing; the new is replacing the old so fast that it makes one’s head spin! I am also aware that the closing of a small church is nothing out of the ordinary. I have been resident in the Diocese of Missouri since 1989 and, in that span of about twenty-five years, the census of congregations in the diocese has declined from fifty-nine to about forty-six. Many of those remaining churches are quite small. Attrition is a reality. What I am saying is that it is a sad reality and we should mourn it. We should also be willing to confess that, over the years, churches like Grace were neglected in many ways. The saddest part of the article about the conversion of the church building to a private residence is the revelation of “deferred maintenance,” i.e. a rotting steeple, clogged gutters leading to water problems, etc. Grace Episcopal Church, Clarksville, we mourn your passing and we give thanks for your life and witness. Requiem Eternam!