Church happy to see new life for building as arts centre
Sheilagh Garrett of the Anglican Church board reached out to local Visual Arts Centre committee to offer church as new home
January 8, 2024, 9:08 am
Ashley Bochek
Sheilagh Garrett is a member of the St Alban’s Anglican Church board in Moosomin. The church has been declining in attendance over the past few years and has decided to lease space to the Moosomin Visual Arts Centre.
Sheilagh reached out to Terry Grant, vice-chair of the Visual Arts Centre, offering the church as space for the new arts centre.
“St Alban’s, as with so many churches, has declining attendance. We have lost many older members and been unable to attract a younger membership. We have had no paid minister for several years, and mainly rely on volunteers for weekly lay services. It’s difficult to offer extra programs such as Bible study or mid-week services with volunteers who all have other jobs or commitments. In the fall of 2022, after poor attendance at an open meeting, the decision was made to continue with services until Easter 2023 then make some hard decisions.”
Sheilagh thinks the church will be a perfect fit for the new arts centre. “In May, I read the article in the World Spectator about a group wanting to create a local arts centre. I thought, wouldn’t the Anglican church be a fantastic building. It has various areas that can be developed for different uses, it is in a good location, and maybe most importantly for myself personally, a great future use for a sacred and cherished historical building that has been so important to my own family for so many years. My mother (The Reverend Betty Garrett) first began working in the parish in the early 1970’s and I was involved with the joining of the church and hall in 2001. I have pictures of my mom, myself, my daughter and granddaughter at the blessing and sod turning ceremony that year. Of course so many other families have their own connections.
“I called Terry Grant and said ‘hey this is unofficial, but what do you think?’ He was very receptive to the idea. And it went from there. There were discussions with both groups. Would the space work for the Visual Arts programs; how would it all evolve? Although as a congregation we had already been discussing the reality of the future of our church, when the actual moment came, there was definite second thought. St Alban’s of course, is owned by the Anglican Diocese of Qu’Appelle and they have final say in the use of the building. We included our Bishop Helen Kennedy and she made some excellent suggestions. Instead of all or nothing, we looked at smaller steps.
Sheilagh explains it was tough for board members to agree to pass the church building along.
“There was some second thought definitely, but we agreed it’s better to see it be used then to sit empty. It is tough. When we had our meetings on the next steps for the church we agreed we had to do something.
“I think the real game-changer was when we talked to the Bishop and she said, don’t be in too big of a panic here, slow it down, smaller steps because we just thought it had to be all or nothing.
“Then we thought we would keep the church just we might not hold a service every Sunday, but we will see where that goes. We have a three-year lease and by the end of the three years, then it will be passed on. I think we ourselves took little steps and we had our own comfort level with it.”
Sheilagh feels this is the right next step for the Anglican Church.
“The church has limited funds and cannot continue to operate on the offerings received. With so few members it makes it hard because we rely on our peach fundraiser that was huge and being able to rent space to the Kids’ Kollege, that was good.
“After several meetings with the Arts group we came to an agreement. For now, the church will continue to rent the basement of the hall to Kids’ Kollege, and retain the church body itself. The rest of the building will be rented to the Arts Group. Regular services will be held as long as possible, and then the hope is that a full transfer of the building will be made to the Arts Group. It seems like it was meant to be.
“The reality is you have to move on. I mean it is only a building in reality. This is a building. It is a precious building, but it is only a building.”
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