Rev. Tom Goodhue, Long Island Council of Churches’ Executive Director, began the Convocation by thanking Riverhead Building Supply for their generous support of this event and First Baptist Church for their hospitality. He noted that churches are facing challenges in ministry as our Island and our world changes more rapidly than at any time previously in our lives. To respond effectively, we must learn to work together across denominational, racial, economic, and language divisions. Having a large number churches separated by only a few miles may have made sense in horse and buggy days but it no longer does. Ecumenical and interfaith ministry is both more exciting for younger generations and regenerative for congregations.

Bishop Jeremiah Park is Bishop of the New York Conference, United Methodist Church. Bishop Park began by saying how much he likes an ecumenical approach to cooperative ministry, because "we are all one in the Body of Christ". John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said, “The world is my parish. I look forward to the day when anyone from any tradition can worship in any church and say, `This is my parish.’ As a Bishop in the United Methodist Church, it is not my task to expand the United Methodist Church,” he said, “but rather to build the Kingdom of God.”

“As a connectional church, cooperation is in our DNA,” but it wasn’t until the 1900’s that churches began to work in cooperative parish ministries, Bishop Park said. The United Methodist Book of Discipline did not recognize cooperative parishes until 1976. The New York Annual Conference of the UMC now has three full-fledged cooperative parishes, where two or more churches share a single parish council, 35 “multiple-point charges” where more than one church is served by one pastor, and seven “federated” or “union” churches, where congregations of different denomination have merged.

Each of these approaches has its own opportunities and challenges, Bishop Park noted. It takes a long time to form a successful cooperative parish, for example: he just celebrated the coming together of three rural congregations that started talking about doing this 25 years ago. Multiple-point charges and cooperative parishes often are plagued by conflicts over where the pastor spends his or her time and how costs are allocated and there is often duplication of both meetings and building expenses. The biggest challenge that federated and union churches face seems to be relating to the differing polity (governance) of different denominations, particularly when those who are used to “calling” a pastor suddenly discover that a United Methodist bishop will appoint their next one.

The New York Conference recognizes the need for churches to cooperate, but not in a top-down fashion. Pressure from the Conference to merge, for example, leads to local resistance, particularly when buildings and locations have attained sacred status. “We are not in the business of maintaining buildings,” Bishop Park reminded us. “We are in the business of the mission of Jesus Christ. Many of us are just managing decline.” Both clergy and lay people have to catch the vision of this mission and transmit it to others.

The Rev. Bill Wendler told how Carpenter United Methodist Church in Glen Cove slowly declined for years until he decided to take the congregation on “field trips.” They cancelled worship services in Glen Cove one a month and visited other churches, seeking a partner in cooperative ministry. They finally chose Bayville UMC and began worshipping together and sharing a full-time pastor and a part-time pastor. They gradually merged their Sunday Schools and church committees. The Glen Cove women started a fellowship group in Bayville, which had not had one. Two-and-a-half years into this cooperative parish, the Rev. Bob Liebold reported, it has energized both congregations and continues to be exciting.

John Litke is a member of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Huntington Station who assists Metro Synod Bishop Stephen Bouman “with churches in transition—a euphemism for struggling.” Cooperative ministry, he observed, is “a way to make a radical shift in our mission and ministry. Even the closing of a congregation is a unique opportunity for collaboration between churches.” When a congregation dies, there’s blaming, denial, and defensiveness, he noted, but death is part of life. A congregation is like an individual. They have to mourn, remember and comfort. Most buildings cost $2 Million each to keep up. If there are only 10 people, does this make sense? Is that good stewardship of resources? Isn’t it better to close and use that money for ministry?

To work with a dying church we need to walk with them in mourning and to witness to our belief in resurrection after death, and this is a responsibility of neighboring congregations. A dying congregation is absolutely the wrong place to send a seminarian, Litke insisted, as has often happened in the past. They need a pastor experienced in transition and bridge building because a special kind of pastoral care is required. It is important to be compassionate rather than simply comforting and to help parishioners “see our interdependence as an essential part of who we are—that our resources are not ours but a gift from God.”

The resurrection that comes from the death of the church is the re-investment of the resources in mission. When a church building is sold, the ELCA Synod does not use the money for ongoing administrative expenses but instead sends 10% to the church’s wider ministry, 10% to other local missions within the Synod, and 80% is reinvested in new ministries, either those begun by existing congregations or in new church development. Helping a congregation through this transition costs $250,000 - 500,000 but the sale of a building usually yields about $1.5 million for ministry.

Mary Ann Tupper, the Director of Human Resources of the Hamptons, recruits people across ecumenical boundaries, working with group of clergy from all the churches from Shinnecock Canal to the East Hampton town line. They have one global hub of giving to get better distribution of resources. Her board members are from many different churches so they know what’s happening and can go back to their churches to get help. They have 900 families as their clients. Human Resources began as a food pantry and used clothing closet but has grown into an organization that provides everything from care for the caregivers to medical transportation. They increasingly assist college educated single moms “who simply cannot make it on Long Island.”

The local Catholic Church gives them free space, so their overhead is only 10%. They have 130 volunteers and also make good use of students who are required by Southampton schools to do community service—as well as teenagers sent to HRH by juvenile probation.

Marty DiPirro explained that Maureen’s Haven was named for Sister Maureen from Catholic Charities, who died of breast cancer but had begun agitating for a homeless shelter on the East End 20 years ago. Many people think of Long Island as extremely affluent, but homelessness on the East End is a serious problem. Maureen’s Haven now has volunteers from 35 houses of worship that participate at 12 different sites, providing shelter, food, and encouragement seven nights a week, serving as many as 40 guests a night. They manage to get about 12 people a year into permanent housing and one guest who has been tutored each evening by shelter volunteers is now getting her GED. The key to their success, she believes, is recruiting people to “do what you can,” anything from making a casserole to driving a van to spending the night in your sanctuary with homeless guests. Most evenings, the hospitality is quite ecumenical with Protestants volunteering at a Catholic site, or Unitarian Universalists from Southold volunteering at Mattituck Presbyterian Church.

We also heard other brief examples of successful collaborative/cooperative ministries:

• The Rev. Lorraine DeArmitt told how United Methodists and Presbyterians in Southold created a youth group called “Methbyterians.” Both congregations now have a stronger youth ministry than either could have done separately and they are drawing in many other teens from the community.
  
  
• Cutchogue Presbyterian Church has shared its building for the past eleven years with North Fork Reform Synagogue, a congregation that began in 1992 at 1st Universalist Church in Southold but rapidly outgrew their facility. Howard Eilenberg reported that both congregations have benefited from sharing maintenance costs and their partnership has blossomed into jointly sponsored concerts, a lecture series, and other special events.
  
  
• The Rev. John Best from the Presbyterian Church in Montauk told how Presbyterians have joined in cooperative ministry with Latinos on the South Fork, focusing first on Spanish-language worship and more recently on public policy advocacy with Latinos.
  
  
• The Rev. Charles Coverdale, Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Riverhead, told how his English-speaking African-American congregation has reached out to Latinos, many of whom are completely fluent in English and wanted to be welcomed into his church, not offered a Spanish service at another hour. “You may not know how to bridge Anglo/Latino/Black divisions,” he said, “but you need to try. You have to break down cultural barriers in your own mind. . . . There are plenty of people who enjoy an African-American style of worship who are not African-American. . . . You also have to break down the cultural barriers within your own church.”

Photos from our 2007 Convocation can be seen in the “Photo Gallery”.

Ideas You Can Use: FUNNY SONGS FOR THE FEAST OF FOOLS