Vermont Churches
Aren’t ‘Dismayed’

I recently read an article about a Pew Forum poll that found only 23% of those in Vermont and New Hampshire attend church on a regular basis. This figure was the lowest of any region in the U.S.

The Pew Forum statistics are interesting, but they do not control the life of any church, mosque or synagogue that I know of in Vermont or New Hampshire. If they did, we would have closed shop long ago and abandoned New Hampshire and Vermont as bad church markets unworthy of the effort. But we in the church do not actually deal in market shares. We do not base our sense of worth on the percentage of the population we are able to convince they need our product.

What is amazing to me as a pastor is that anyone comes to church on Sunday, much less 23% of the population! There is the Sunday paper to read, there is the news to watch, there is sleep to catch up on, there is hanging out, there is skiing and hockey and swimming to get to often before the sun rises, and there are the Pats and the Sox. The 23% who actually get up to come to church are an extraordinary bunch.

The article on the poll concluded this way:

"Finally, churches that are dismayed by these survey results might well wonder whether they are making sufficient efforts to enrich their own communities by reaching out to non-churchgoers."

Churches that are "dismayed" will not be churches for long. We in the religious world live on hope and faith, and being dismayed is the death knoll of both. If the life of the church were dependent upon the percentage of the population who attended, there would be no life in the church. When we are all gone (God forbid), then you will know we were in fact dismayed.

Do churches evangelize "non-churchgoers" enough? Probably not. But as I read with horror the daily accounts of Brooke Bennett’s kidnapping and slaying, I was struck by the constant presence of the churches in the Randolph area. The churches were there at the early meetings to lead people hoping for Brooke’s safe return, and they were present to help people in the hours and days after her death. All denominations were present, seeking only to help, to comfort, and to care for their neighbors. And they are there today and they will be there tomorrow.

I was in Randolph at a meeting on the day of Brooke’s funeral. I watched the state troopers drive by, I watched car after car head up Main Street to the High School.

I watched as the Rev. Kathy Eddy, though she had no major role in the funeral for Brooke, walked from her Bethany Church up the hill to the Randolph High School, carrying her robe and her stole in the heat of the late morning and carrying all the weight of love she has carried in Randolph for more than 25 years.

I know Kathy and I know she was not going there to convert or to proselytize non-church goers. She was not going because of any poll or percentage or approval rating. She and all of her colleagues were going because that is what the church does: It goes where love is needed. It goes regardless of the percentages, regardless of the culture in which we live, regardless of the dismay in which so many of our neighbors live, regardless of any surveys at all.

If some people would like to bounce that Pew Forum figure up to 24% or more that would be great. If some people would like to join in the work to make sure the church is present the next time it is needed that too would be wonderful. In the meantime, the church that is not dismayed has the work of love to do.

Rev. Douglas S. Moore,

Norwich Congregational

Church, UCC