Part one of a two part series by Fr. Bob Bettson, preached on Sunday Oct. 9, 2005

We come together this Thanksgiving weekend to worship God in this place, and we give thanks for ninety three years of mission and ministry. St. Mark’s Church was dedicated by Bishop Cyprian Pinkham on Wednesday Oct. 6, 1912.

I speak to you today not about the readings from scripture we just heard, but about the future of our parish. We are about to conclude a discernment process and embark on a new chapter in our life as a Christian community.

I want to assure you there is no plan for the future which will be imposed by the Diocese. It is all up to us as members of this parish to make decisions which will shape our future.

That’s why I can’t stress enough that if you care about St. Mark’s future, and I know you do, that as many as possible attend the parish discernment meeting Saturday Oct. 22 at 10 am to listen to others and share your views.

We can’t talk about the future without learning from the past. One thing which is apparent from the past is that St. Mark’s isn’t new to uncertainty about the future.

Our 50th anniversary history booklet tells us that there was a considerable amount of discussion about closing St. Mark’s in 1917. At that time morning services had been discontinued after the priest resigned. A priest from Christ Church took evening services for a while.

But worship was only offered on a “spasmodic” basis. Canon Gale from St. John’s led worship on Tuesday nights. He ended up signing a lease on a house for $25 a month to help St. Mark’s attract a new rector.

In 1920 the vestry and the woman’s guild discussed the idea of St. Mark’s becoming a self supporting parish. At that time the parish was yoked to St. Martin’s, so one priest was rector of both parishes. It took 30 years to become self-supporting but St. Mark’s did it by the early 50’s.

Things weren’t easy for St. Marks during those years. A letter from the Reverend Frederick Vaughan Birch in 1940: “St. Mark’s is a struggling church, but is probably more alive in some ways than any church in the city.”

St. Mark’s came into its own in the post world war two period. And some of our current members can recall the building of this church to replace the little old church and hall.

St. Mark’s stepped forth in faith to begin the project with only $2,000 in the bank. The sod was turned on May 14, 1952. The building project involved loans and debentures, and sometimes materials arrived COD--cash on delivery. But the church opened in Holy Week, on March 31, 1953.

At that point St. Martin’s and St. Mark’s ended their long association and became self supporting parishes. The first rector of St. Mark’s on its own was the Reverend Reginald Wright.

The next cycle was growth and consolidation. The new building was finished and paid for. The organ was acquired from St. Augustine’s Lethbridge. And when the old church hall and building was condemned in 1957, plans began for the parish hall, which was dedicated in 1960.

The 60’s were clearly the heyday for St. Mark’s. Our Sunday school was bulging. The pews were almost full. The rectory was acquired next door to the church. St. Mark’s had many active groups. The church and hall were an important centre for the community.

Since then our context has changed. We can see by looking around us at Sunday worship that we average about 50 worshippers each Sunday at the main service--about half the number even five years ago. We are an older group with few children and teens, few young people, and most of us being over the age of 50.

This isn’t unusual in the Anglican Church, or for that matter any of the old mainline Protestant Churches--United, Presbyterian, Baptist.

But we do have to come to grips with the fact that we can not just continue as we are--we have to have some strategy for the future. To continue as we are would mean a gradual slide towards and end to St. Mark’s.

For now we have been able to keep operating thanks to intensive use of our building by community groups, notably the day care and ballet arts group which donate a significant part of the cost of maintaining this building and paying for a full time priest.

But our numbers and our offerings aren’t enough to sustain the parish in the long term, even with that help.

It is good to see our wonderful facility used for all sorts of activities seven days a week. We are providing an important service to our community.

But we need to grow, and that is a real problem without a critical mass to start off with. We still get visitors coming to the church --some of them younger people who’ve moved into the neighbourhood. Some with children and some without.

But we’re caught in a trap. We can’t attract younger people because we don’t have many younger people, and we can’t attract people with Sunday school age children because our Sunday school is small--some weeks there aren’t any children at all.

One of the ideas which has been raised is started a contemporary language service outside our main service. But the question is who would attend, and how would we get it started. We need to stick to our strengths--offering traditional services from the Book of Common Prayer. Any contemporary service would require a strong group from within the congregation to get started. It can’t be simply the priest’s responsibility.

We must give thanks for many blessings at St. Mark’s--an excellent location which is easy to find, a large building which has been well cared for, a beautiful worship space can accommodate a good sized congregation. We live in a neighbourhood which is in transition, attracting many new residents.

Yet we have come to this crossroads simply because we lack the critical mass to carry on in the way we have been used to. We need to try something new.

One of the things I will explore next Sunday as I look at the future of St. Mark’s is the idea of partnership with another parish, and specifically the parish of St. Philip the Evangelist.

As you heard, partnership has been part of our past. We were partnered with St. Martin’s--sharing a priest for 40 years--almost half our life as a parish.

But every partnership is different. We don’t know what this would look like, and we’ll have to discuss what a partnership would look as parishes, both together and in separate congregational meetings. Everything would have to be approved by members before proceeding. The clergy and wardens of both parishes have meet and at least agreed to begin the conversation.

This partnership is not the only option St. Mark’s has. But it is an option worth exploring. Continuing on our present course is not an option which holds out hope for the future. It would be nice to think we will suddenly start growing and attracting younger people.

But we are currently in a holding pattern. Some new folks arrive. But others move on, and some of our faithful members like Ernie Else and Ed Coombe have died, and are at rest with God.

The best way we can honour their memory is to keep an open mind, and explore all options as we prayerfully discern our future. We as the vestry and corporation of this parish are not crying wolf. St. Marks does stand at a crossroads. And we do have to choose one path or another.

Let us pray for God’s blessing at this time. I would like to end with a quote from the Reverend Reginald Wright’s first bulletin message in 1953. It should inspire us as we seek to discern our future: “Expect great things, and we shall achieve them; I of you and you of me. Let us go forward in the days which lie before us to make our church a house of prayer, a temple where the praises of God ring out from thankful hearts. Let us foster and create such enterprises in our parish life together as will show the world about us, that we are workmen that need not be ashamed,” Amen

Parish churches have life cycles. Let us pray for God’s guidance as we continue our journey of faith.