How to handle church ownership
The pastor of St Jax writes about how to handle church ownership now that there’s so little demand for their original purpose. I agree with him that the churches should be seen as belonging to the communities which supported them for so long with tax breaks, if not additional tithing.
Michael Black 10:57 on 2020-09-11 Permalink
It’s badly written, and using too much political jargon.
As I’ve said, churches have always been used for community purposes, they were often the first shared spaces in an area. But it was a broad piece, he should have had examples. The Westmount Park United Church had a meeting last fall to turn it into a community space, though I’ve not seen anything since.
Given this guy is connected with an organization about this issue, surely his church downtown is in the forefront? But no mention. And let’s not forget that when that church was rebranded, they wanted to clean up the homeless that were there (I can’t remember the outcome there either).
The Open Door had to move when the church it was using was sold. The NDG Food Depot moved into the Trinity Church in NDG when they lost their lease, then to another church when Trinity was sold (and then to a commercial space for other reasons). I can think of two churches in NDG in recent years where the community groups using the space were a bigger issue when the churches were sold than the actual religious use.
This piece was vague in intent, and implementation.
Kate 11:52 on 2020-09-11 Permalink
You’re right, Michael Black. St Jax was rebranded – it’s the exact word. I seem to recall the homeless were dispatched to St John the Evangelist (the red roof church behind Place des Arts) but am not sure of that.
PatrickC 14:57 on 2020-09-11 Permalink
I agree the article is vague and that he should have spelled out a community vision for his own church–or better, said how he was going to get input from the local community about what it would like to see. I hated the rebranding too, though I supported the initiative for the Writer’s Chapel there: http://www.writerschapeltrust.com/home.php
A church I know in LA that had to be closed because the congregation dwindled has also been rebranded with a cutesy name (Saint Barnabas –> Saint Be.) but with some help they developed a decentralized community vision with a preschool, a community garden, yoga and dance classes, along with both Jewish and Christian worship groups. A work in progress, but at least a way forward.