When this church lost its minister, these ordinary churchgoers stepped up to save it
CBC
Each Sunday morning, the grand ceilings of Freshwater United Church fill with hymns.
The elegant clapboard church, built nearly a century ago for a congregation of hundreds, now sees only about 20 turn out each weekend in this largely retiree community.
It appears, at a glance, as another story of fading churchgoing in rural Newfoundland and Labrador in the 21st century..
But that glance is deceiving.
At the front of this week's crowd, a diminutive woman steps to the mic and delivers a not-so-ordinary sermon: she namechecks David Bowie, jokes about her age, and delves into finding meaning in her life.
A not-so-ordinary sermon, because she's a not-so-ordinary minister. Actually, she's not a minister at all.
"I started doing some services and agreed to do one, and then it turned into more than one," said Jennifer Adams with a laugh. The retired teacher is one of five lay ministers of the church — ordinary members of the congregation who rotate through Sundays, as a way, they say, of keeping their church alive.
A few years ago, Freshwater United confronted a challenge plaguing many churches: their part-time minister was leaving. Even if they could find a replacement — 35 per cent of United churches in the province are without ministers due to staff shortages, estimates its governing body — Freshwater could scarcely afford to pay their salary.
LISTEN | Amid a minister shortage, these ordinary people answered the call:
"We were all wondering what was going to happen. We knew we couldn't afford a minister. But we definitely didn't want to see our church go down," said Lynne Priddle, a retired civil servant who has attended Freshwater United her entire life.
Priddle and the others decided on a communal experiment: forgo a minister entirely and run the place themselves.
"The response to it was so good, that we just kept doing it, and we decided we really didn't need or want a minister," said lay minister Andrew Peacock.
The lay ministers can't dole out communion or perform baptisms, but they can perform the other duties of regular mass and conduct funerals. The only thing stopping them from weddings is getting the required licence from the government.
They also don't do sermons, preferring to call their thoughts "times of reflection."
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
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