A tradition of about 140 years ends next Sunday when the Trinity Episcopal Church of Trinidad officially closes its doors and disbands its congregation due to rising operating costs and declining attendance.
Trinity Church is currently located at 119 Colorado Ave., a space it has occupied for more than 120 years.
A statement put out by the church read, “Due to the decrease in the number of worshippers attending services, and the steadily increasing expense of operating and maintaining the building, the congregation and the Dioceses of Colorado have agreed that the Episcopal presence in Colorado must come to an end.”
Vicar Janet Rawlins estimated that the congregation had dwindled to less than 10 regularly attending members. “There’s no cut-off point,” Rawlins said. “No one is shutting us down. It’s just the circumstances as they are make it necessary to end over 120 years of the Episcopal presence in Trinidad.
This is very sad. If Bishop Robert O’Neill had any honor, he would admit his failure and resign.
Could TEc “new thing” had anything to do with the dwindling congregation? I agree with #1, Rob’s a failure but I suspect anyone the HOB would approve would probably be even worse.
ALL IS WELL(tm)
the snarkster
#1 – so would Peter Lee – and I mean now, not when he runs out the clock in favor of Mr. Johnston.
What does William Sulik know about Trinidad, Colorado or the involvement of the Bishop of Colorado? Could he have brought about a more vibrant and workable congregation? And the comment about Bishop Lee is a non sequitor. There is no relation. These uninformed, negative comments say not so much about the situations they purport to address as they are expressions of a prepackaged resentment, embarrassing in in its expression, and without merit.
Phillip Cato
Well said #5 Phillip. Before I even clicked to read the comments, I had correctly guessed what the responses would be.
When a theology is vacuous, the local parish or mission eventually suffers an unsustainable loss of members, and eventually dies. Nothing new here, and it will happen again and again in TEC.
“the congregation and the Dioceses of Colorado have agreed that the Episcopal presence in Colorado must come to an end.”
OOPS! Don’t they mean an end to the Episcopal presence in TRINIDAD, not a presence in all of Colorado? Of course, that might eventually be the effect….
This town in southwestern Colorado has a population of under 10,000 — but with =30= churches within the town itself. Others are struggling, too. Sadly, with an aging (and perhaps increasingly ailing) population and the emigration of the young to brighter job opportunities elsewhere, Trinity may not be the last church in town to close its doors.
w.w.
Setting other issues aside, I don’t understand why congregations like this have to completely disband. For pity’s sake reduce it to an unorganized mission, a house church. Why is it necessary to “end the Episcopal presence” in the city (note the link has corrected it to say “Trinidad” rather than the Freudian slip of “Colorado”). Now I am no fan of “total ministry”, in fact this is one more example of its eventual failure, but I think this shows a completely upside-down vision of what the Church is and how is should express itself. The loss of the building is very sad, but keep those 10 folks worshipping together, unless they want to go off to the Lutherans (not a bad idea, depending on what sort of Lutherans they are).
Nos. 5 & 6 – I, too, guessed correctly what several of the postings would be like. The whole thing is so sad.
Sorry guys, you are missing the point, what we have here is the end result of trying to keep dying congregations going by ordaining local priests. Rolland Allen’s ministering communities idea was, that the local congregation has the gifts to sustains its own life. Unfortunately he was thinking of vibrant congregations of committed believers who have something to say to their local community. Rolland’s idea works when you are in need of more priests because the church is growing too quickly, it does nothing when the church is dying except prolong the agony.
This is a common mistake made when the institution comes to the realisation, that ministry to those outside the cities (in the pagus) is no longer sustainable. I have seen local priests almost driven into the ground. A non stipendiary clergy, (read unpaid) conscripted onto diocesan committees, even made an arch deacon and examining chaplain, before she learnt to say no!
This experiment is rural Colorado was doomed before it even began. It just took twenty painful years to die.
regards,
jon R
The shame here is that the diocese is spending so much money in law suits that it can’t afford to keep a gospel presence in this whole one quarter of the diocese in the Southeast part of the state.
I have a friend who is a reasserting pastor of a church in Colorado. I will not say where, but his church is vibrant and growing, due to the fact that his preaching is Biblically based and he is offering discipleship to the parishoners.
Perhaps if they followed that methodology things would turn around in other places.
Jim Elliott <><
Trinidad the southern most city of the Colorado I -25 corridor. They have just built a new, very expensive retirement community around a Jack Nicklaus golf course The home prices are $250-500k which is a lot for this area. It is also the sex-change capital of the world with that operation being the main focus of the local hospital. One would think that the affluent from the retirement community and the transgendered would be an ideal draw for an Episcopal church. Alas, less than 10 people per week wanted to come be part of the social club erstwhile church.
The parochial report data for the parish has already been removed from the church website, but I managed to come up with the community data from Percept. Trinidad is a pretty big place, as towns out in the sticks go, but it has something like 2/3s of the county population. 40% of the county population is Hispanic, which explains why half of the county is Catholic. The city is comparatively poor and undereducated compared with the rest of the country.
16-This is interesting…above we have the ABC expressing the centrality of the MGDs to help the poor in rural parts of the world…and then this story from Colorado and your statistics which combine to indicate that when actually confronted with the poor in a rural setting, the Episcopal Church pulls up stakes and throws in the towel…what really guides them in their thinking in TEO?
Well, poverty is of course a relative thing, and Trinidad is, by third world standards, hardly poor. The Hispanic proportion is probably more relevant. On the other hand, the statistics certainly show an opportunity for evangelism, and a 100 year old church is certainly a bird in the hand as far as resources are concerned. One would like to think that these situations could be looked at as something more than caretaker chaplaincies.
But it isn’t surprising. When I look at ECUSA’s focus on inclusion, and especially on what kind of inclusion is meant by that, it’s clear that for the most part those that are sought are largely upper middle class suburbanites and city folk.