The Archdeacon - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

A Visit to St. Anskar’s

The telephone conversation with Christa went something like this.  She answered the phone in her usual manner when she saw his name on the display, “Hello Aaaarchdeacon,” she said drawing out the word, “So, how did the meeting with the bishop go?”

“Christa,” he responded, not returning the playful banter by which he would usually reply  “Hello, Canon.” Instead, after a pause, he began, “Christa, she’s very serious about getting right down to deciding which parishes are viable and which are not, and she wants me to do some…”

“…deanery visitations,” she cut in. “That’s what we expected, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s just that she wants me to start with Milbank deanery.”  The reader will recall that this was the deanery over which Canon Christa Clement was rural dean.

“That bitch!” she growled.  Canon Clement was amongst that fifty percent of the clergy who wouldn’t have minded seeing the vaping bishop struck down by a speeder outside the diocesan centre.

“Christa, that’s out of line.”

“You’re right. She’s a ‘grade A’ bitch!  You told her to go to hell?”

“Of course not…”

“I don’t believe you,” she retorted. “You’re not actually going to do this, are you?”

“Christa…the reason I’m calling is that I needed you to know, and I need you to call all your clergy and tell them to expect a call from me to set up a meeting.”

“I see,” she said coldly.

“Just don’t scare them. Just tell them I want to come and hear about the ministry that is going on in their parish, what they're doing that's good, where they're struggling a bit…”

“Right,” she cut in again. “Call them yourself, Archdeacon.” And with that, she hung up.

After a moment of sitting in silence, the Archdeacon decided that perhaps it was just best to start making some calls.

Remarkably, it took him only a few hours to get all the meetings lined up.  Say what you want about clergy, when an ecclesiastical superior calls, they are generally smart enough to make themselves available as requested. 

By Thursday, he was making his first visit - to St. Anskar’s. This was the only parish in the deanery that was not in financial trouble; the one the bishop had explicitly asked him to check out for fear that they had gone off the play-book in terms of their liturgy. St. Anskar’s was in the town of Briarmont.  It was one of the larger town churches in the area and located in the midst of an old declining town that had recently come to life again as a bustling commuter community.  Home building had exploded over the past few years due to the rising cost of housing in the metropolitan area of the city and the suburbs, which had made home ownership in those areas largely beyond the reach of young families.  This was the demographic to which St. Anskar’s catered, and by all appearances, the church seemed to be doing a good job of reaching them. The church had a regular Sunday attendance of about 175 people, which may as well be a thousand, in Anglican reckoning.

As he approached the church, he was met by the church warden, Ernie Bedford. Ernie had been around for years.  The Archdeacon knew him, as Ernie had been on several diocesan committees and seemed to have served perennially as a member of synod for the parish. His people went back many generations in the area, probably amongst the earliest settlers in Briarmont, and Ernie was proud as punch as to how well “his” church was doing in comparison to so many other churches in the deanery.

“Morning, Archdeacon!” He called out as Archdeacon Fulman got out of his car.

“Morning, Ernie,” he called back. “Good to see you again.” They approached and shook hands.

“Rebecca will be along shortly; she’s just finishing up an important meeting.”

Now, the Reverend Rebecca Hope was the rector of St. Anskar’s and every meeting that she ever had was an “important” meeting, except for one.  She would regularly miss her clericus meetings, that is, the monthly mandatory meeting of all clergy in the deanery, because she had either another “important” meeting or an “important” funeral. Everything Rebecca did was “important.”  In fact, she had just arrived back from the States where she had attended some sort of important “Purpose driven-Willow Creek–leadership mentoring–something or other-conference”

“That’s fine, Ernie.  Mind if I take a look inside while we wait for her?”

“For sure,” said Ernie, enthusiastically, anxious to show off the recent renovations.

The Archdeacon knew that they had recently done a lot of work on the interior of the church.  He was both anxious and afraid to see what had been done, for it was one of the most beautiful church interiors in the area. There was fine woodworking, beautiful stained glass windows, and exquisite stenciling that had been done in the 1940s by Thos. Browne and Co. They entered through the narthex and our hero’s heart fell. I don’t think I can do justice to the shock the Archdeacon experienced when he saw what had been done. He thought he was going to be sick. The church had been completely gutted.

“Don’t you just love it, Archdeacon?” Ernie exuded confidently.

St. Anskar’s has - no, had - one of the most beautifully ornate rood screens in the whole of the diocese. It was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Probably chopped down and used for firewood, he thought angrily. The pews, which were of that quaint old sort, with the open backs to accommodate a Victorian woman’s bustle, had vanished. Someone told me recently that they were sold to parishioners to raise money for the ugly cushioned chairs that had replaced them. The chancel and sanctuary were vacant except for a drum kit and some music stands.  The prayer desks were gone, the choir pews were gone, the altar was gone.

“Umm, Ernie?” he asked, “Where’s the altar?”

“Oh, Archdeacon! You’re going to love this!”  Ernie scurried over to the baptistery and motioned toward a covered object, “check this out!”  He pulled an old piece of burlap off the altar which had been dismissively stored out of sight and said “We put casters on it!” and then he began to roll it around.  “Isn’t this great? We can just store it here when it’s not in use and wheel it out for the rare occasions that we need it!”

“Hrmph,” the Archdeacon muttered under his breath, “Meals on wheels.”

“What’s that, Archdeacon?”

“Nothing.”

At that moment the Reverend Rebecca Hope entered.

“Hel-lo Tom,” she began in a sing-songy voice, “so wonderful to see you again. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I was in a very important meeting.”

“Nice to see you, too,” the Archdeacon responded, determining that he must get this new habit of lying under control. “Rebecca,” he began quizzically, “where are the stained glass windows?”

“Oh,” she laughed, “we sold them on Ebay.”

“What?!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“Yes, and we did really well for them!  And look, isn’t it so much nicer now to be able to look out and meditate on God’s creation rather than having to always look up at those white, blond-haired Jesuses and apostles all the time?”

The Archdeacon was gazing through one at the moment, and he didn’t think the view of the hydro pole and transformer was any more edifying than the missing “Supper at Emmaus” window.

“But what about the donors? The families? These were memorial windows!”

“They’re all either dead, or moved away, or don’t come anymore,” she responded nonchalantly.

“Did you even try to contact them? Did you let the bishop know this was happening? You know we have canons about the removal of memorials from churches!”

“You know what they say, Tom, ‘better to ask forgiveness than seek permission”!  And besides, the parish advisory board approved it.”

“The parish advisory board had no authority to do that! It’s an advisory board, not a decision-making body.” But she was no longer listening.  It was then that he noticed the giant projector screen that had been installed on the East Wall, now obscuring the view of the cross that hung there. “Bishop Verity is going to be homicidal,” he thought to himself.

Rebecca Hope and Ernie had move quickly ahead and were calling him to follow them through the transept door into the newly-built church hall. He followed, trying to recover from his state of absolute shock and disbelief.  He was equally shocked, though by the magnificent church hall when he entered. It was quite spectacular. It was large enough to accommodate a large banquet. It had a state of the art commercial kitchen, several spacious washrooms, good lighting, and several break-out rooms off the main hall.  

“All paid for by donations from the parishioners and local businesses,” bragged Ernie.

“And we feed one hundred homeless people dinner here three time a week,” added Rebecca. “All the food is donated and all the work is done by parishioners. And in the winter, we use the hall as a shelter for ‘Inn from the Cold’.”

“This is impressive, Rebecca.”

“Isn’t it though?” she smiled. “Archdeacon, the Lord has blessed our faithfulness here.  The church is full of young families. We just had to hire a second youth minister. We are hiring a community outreach coordinator. We are full on Sundays, and every week we have new people coming through the door. The people here are so engaged. And the best part? We have a dozen small group Bible studies going in homes. The Holy Spirit is really moving here.”

Reluctantly, the Archdeacon had to agree that they had a great success on their hands.  It was a successful church, but like the Bishop, he wondered if was an Anglican church any more. Or did it matter?  I have known a number of these sorts of places over the years, and I have to admit, they turn my stomach.  Yet, whose church is it? Is the church mine, or yours, or the Archdeacon’s, or Rebecca Hope’s, or the Bishop’s? Something remarkable was happening here, regardless of the Archdeacon’s aesthetical taste. Who was our hero to judge the success or failure of a church based on personal taste anyway? He was supposed to stand above all that in this visitation.

“Don’t you just love it all?” asked Ernie.

No, he did not love it. Not one bit of it. But he did have a sense of admiration for what they had accomplished, but he lamented over what had been destroyed to get there and wondered if that was entirely necessary.

“What you have done here is…impressive,” he offered reluctantly.

“Not me, Tom. The Lord.” The pious cliché was most certainly not impressive.

“Rebecca,” I have a few more questions and things to go over during lunch…”

“Oh Tom, I’m so sorry. I can’t do lunch today. I have a very important funeral at 2 pm and need to finish preparing. Ernie can help you with anything else you need,” and with that she turned on her heels and darted away. Ernie did help him with the rest. He showed him the vestry book, the figures, toured him around a bit more and a saw him politely to his car.

“Now you take care, Archdeacon,” he said.

As the Archdeacon drove away he pondered what he had seen, what he had heard, and what he had witnessed.  This was the most successful church in the deanery.  If it were up to him, he’d close it in a second.

...THE ARCHDEACON CONTINUES TOMORROW.