- Chalmers-Wesley United Church
I began attending Chalmers-Wesley
in the autumn of 1983 after many years of never going to
church. It was a pleasant suprise! Yes, the minister
seemed to be from another era with his talk about
"moral rearmament," but he had dynamism and an
unflagging commitment to his congregation. Perhaps his
old-fashionedness was part of the reason. I don't know.
The congregation was a fascinating mix: the old
English community—depleted by the exodus of
1976-1981; recent arrivals to Québec like myself; and a
cluster of Francophone Protestants, who would eventually
found our sister congregation of Église St-Pierre in
1987.
In 1986, the minister was inducted as President of the
Montreal-Ottawa Conference. Three Sundays out of five he
was no longer available. Then, in 1988, he left. During
this period our numbers fell: from 125 supporting
households in 1985 to only 60 in 1992. The decline didn't
happen for demographic reasons. At that time, the English
community was holding steady and even rebounding
somewhat. It happened partly because some members
disliked the new minister, partly because francophone and
francophile Protestants were now being directed to
St-Pierre and, above all, because most of our Christian
Education programs (the monthly student group, the youth
group, all but one of the Sunday School classes) had
withered away through neglect.
The mood was now different. There had always been some
pessimism about our future but by the early 1990s it had
become more vocal. Many people, including the new
minister, were openly saying that we should sell the
church building and merge with another congregation.
These years saw no new outreach programs—why
bother?—and even our ties with St-Pierre became
little more than a landlord-tenant relationship.
For myself, this troubled period was one of increased
involvement. I became editor of the newsletter, The
Spire, and served on the Official Board and the
Worship Committee. In the spring of 1994, the choir voted
to change its practice night, after being told that
having the practice on Friday night was keeping young
people away. I was asked to go out and recruit new
student members. When the new season began in the fall,
however, the choir director told me that the practice
night would be the same as before, even though I had
already recruited several new members. None of them came
after hearing the news.
In September 1994, the minister left and I was given
the job of planning Sunday services and finding guest
ministers until a replacement could be found. I pretty
much ran the show for half a year. This was a time when I
learned just how little I knew about the United Church of
Canada (despite my long upbringing in it) and about other
denominations as well. The guest ministers were mostly
United Church, Presbyterian, or Anglican, but there were
also several evangelicals. I had little choice. Locally,
there were few English-speaking Protestant ministers
available. Among some members of our congregation,
however, the conviction grew that I was some kind of
closet fundamentalist.
In February 1995, a new minister arrived and I moved
on to other duties. I was one of several delegates to a
workshop on church growth (at St. Andrew's Presbyterian
Church) and we came up with a list of recommendations.
But they were never followed up. The minister said we had
too many other issues to deal with.
In the summer, I was again asked to recruit students
for the choir and was again promised that the practice
night would no longer be on Friday. And again that
decision was reversed at the last minute. The choir
director also stated that any student members would have
to sign a pledge to stay in the choir for a year. We had
never imposed this requirement on the older members. I
talked to the minister, but he said there was nothing he
could do.
At that point I decided to leave. Leaving Chalmers was
difficult. I was heavily involved and it took me several
months to resign from all of my positions and wind up all
of my commitments. The following are my last two
editorials for The Spire (click title for
access):
Summer 1996
September 1996
Then, in the spring of 1997, the minister announced
that he was leaving and I was asked to chair the Search
Committee. With some reluctance I agreed. It seemed like
a chance to find a minister who would really commit to
church growth. We received no firm applications at first,
but eventually a candidate from Montreal turned up. She
was a church liberal and spoke about the need to defend
gay rights and promote inclusive language. To this end,
she wanted to discard the old hymn book and bring in a
new one, Voices United (which the choir had
earlier rejected as "good intentions but lousy
music").
I actually liked her. She seemed dynamic and had
spoken about the need for growth. But I was afraid of her
acting unilaterally on the hymn book. Would she first try
to get the Official Board on-side? We adjourned for an
intermission and I got permission to ask this question
... after repeated opposition from one committee member.
When the time came to put the question to the candidate,
the same member raised her voice, saying that if we
weren't going to be an inclusive church she would sooner
leave Chalmers. I again tried to ask the question and was
again interrupted, this time by other members.
The interview was now over. With the candidate out of
the room, I took the committee member to task, calling
her behaviour grossly inappropriate and the interview a
farce. But it soon became apparent that most of the
committee supported her. I mumbled something about the
importance of procedure and there was some polite
head-nodding, but I was clearly the odd one out.
A day or so later, I got a phone call. There was going
to be a special meeting to patch up our differences.
Would I please come? I came, expecting to meet the
committee member in question and perhaps one or two
others. The entire committee was there. And the person in
question seemed far from conciliatory. She spoke at
length about how the United Church had changed over the
years despite much resistance. If some people had trouble
with these changes, they could join a faith tradition
where they would feel more at home.
I couldn't understand why I was being told all of
this. I replied, at one point, that I liked the candidate
and wasn't opposed to having her as our minister. A
committee member then blurted out: "Eh?! But we
didn't know ..."
I had heard enough. I said something to the effect
that I was resigning as chair of the Search Committee and
that I no longer wished to remain at Chalmers-Wesley. I
walked out.
In such a situation, the Official Board normally
appoints a new chair, who has to investigate the matter
and report back. Instead, the candidate was hired without
further ado. Since then, I have never gone back.
This episode has two postscripts: one comical, the
other sad. A month or so after, I ran into someone from
Chalmers, who asked: "So how are things at Quebec
Baptist Church?" I had no idea what she was talking
about. "But people were saying you'd become a
Baptist ..."
The other postscript materialized about half a year
later. The new minister was dying from a terminal
illness. She had been in remission at the time of her
interview—a detail that some of the committee
members had known but kept concealed.
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