St. Paul's United Church in Harrowsmith to close

Jeff Green | Mar 02, 2016

At a meeting of church members on Sunday, which was also attended by officials from the United Church Conference and Presbytery, a decision was taken to close St. Paul's United Church in Harrowsmith. St. Paul's will be looking towards amalgamation with Trinity United Church in Verona.

A meeting is being held at Trinity later this week to discuss where to go from here. St. Paul's and Trinity already make up a single pastoral charge and share the services of one minister, but formal amalgamation will be a larger step.

Nancy Moore-Carr is the chair of St. Paul's Council. She said, “It has become harder and harder for us to pay our bills since there are fewer and fewer members. The members had a vote on Sunday and decided to move towards amalgamating with Trinity in Verona. At some point in the near future St. Paul's will be closing.”

The decision came after a discussion of all the potential options, including the possibility of keeping St. Paul's open while pursuing a co-operative pastoral charge with the Sharbot Lake/Parham charge or another one in the area, but in the end the majority voted in favour of closing now.

“There will be many decisions to be made in the future, many details to be worked out as we go forward, one of them being how we move forward together with Trinity.

This is not something that we wanted,” said Nancy Moore-Carr, but as one member said, 'there isn't any point in staying open if the church is empty'”.

The future disposition of the church building remains to be determined. Impacts on community groups that use it for events and meetings will be considered, before the sale of the church and the adjacent manse can be carried out.

“It would be great if there were a community group that came forward to take it over, like what has happened to the Grace United Church in Sydenham. This is another blow to Harrowsmith, I'm afraid,” she said.

In the end, the aim will be to consolidate the congregation at Trinity in Verona.

The timing of the closing coincides with for South Frontenac Township and Frontenac County, who just announced plans to launch a Community Improvement Plan in Harrowsmith. A public meeting to kick off the plan is set for April.