This week the Waitsfield United Church of Christ leadership team asked the community for help determining next steps to steward the buildings that house the congregation and the Village Meeting House.
With clear-eyed honesty, leaders explained that prudent planning for the future included not just the future of the spiritual community, but also the iconic buildings which define the streetscape of historic Waitsfield Village.
Without judgment, they discussed the fact that demographics have changed and will continue to change and there will no longer be people who can volunteer to do the work that volunteers have undertaken for decades. There is no one coming along behind them to do the work and that means there needs to be a plan for caring for, maintaining and operating the building.
With the pragmatism of Protestants, these United Church of Christ Congregationalists are exploring these future needs before the situation gets dire. How reasonable. How sane. One leader, in talking about the future, said they had had six months to get used to the idea of the church not being in the space and had done their grieving. They are now doing the work of seeing to the future. Talk about Buddhist detachment.
And at the same time, they’re not afraid of the future. They’re open to the possibilities that the future will bring. They recognize that they may still be able to worship there or that they may worship elsewhere and that their worship space may become something else.
But they also recognize that there is a community need for the services that the church building provides, a place to gather, meet, cook, counsel, donate blood, exercise, socialize, mentor, foster, etc. In 2024, the Village Meeting House was used for 700 hours of community events.
“. . . we have been entrusted with this amazing building; this Village Meeting House, and now, to preserve it, we are going to have to release it into an unknown future; to keep it, we are going to have to give it away,” Reverend Mark Wilson told community members this week, calling this a short chapter in the very long history of this faith community in this town.
Clear-eyed, honest, calm.
