Water keeps us alive: reflections from a church anniversary celebration
First Baptist Church, Clifton Springs, NY. Photograph by Jerrod Hugenot.
Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot
This fall, I spoke at the First Baptist Church of Clifton Springs, NY, as they celebrated their 150th anniversary in the beautiful Finger Lakes of upstate New York. The community formed decades before the Baptist congregation organized, though the town boomed with the arrival of Dr. Henry Foster, a 19th-century physician who believed in the curative sulfur spring waters in the area and brought emerging practices in medical sciences to the area.
Just after the Civil War, a business directory for Ontario County noted Clifton Springs was “a flourishing village” on the New York Central Railroad. “Located there are the celebrated Sulphur Springs which have made place of great resort for invalids, while the natural beauty of the village and surrounding country has drawn thither…the pleasure seeker.”
A decade later, in 1875, this church was founded and then in 1876, the Ontario Baptist Association recognized it as a new member church with twelve members.
I paused in my historical sketch to note this idea of a “faithful dozen” resonates in the Baptist histories of the Northeast that I have been able to study. Many churches look back at their founding days with surprise, as our collective living memory is at the earliest the mid-20th century, which was a “high water” era for church attendance in the post-WWII era United States. “Standing room only on Easter Sunday,” I have heard elder congregants remember.
Of course, the discovery that our churches were founded by a small membership can inspire churches today whose active membership on a Sunday might be in the dozens, or fewer. With this history in mind, I encourage churches to remember that many good things can happen with just a small number of people. The church of a dozen is not a barrier to what God can do, as the community of Clifton Springs gathered 150 years later celebrating the legacy of that faithfulness. We might think of this time as a drought, yet I tend to take the longer view provided by Isaiah, who encouraged the people to rebuild Jerusalem after a long exile:
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:11)
While church anniversaries are rightly a time to give thanks to God, we also need to look for the telltale signs of church histories as mirrors to our human nature as well. History is a complicated matter of storytelling: looking for the moments that define us, including the ones that take bravery to admit. A local church history is best told as a combination of what is published in the official commemorative booklet as well as knowing how to ask the right questions out in the parking lot.
As I wrote this celebratory sermon for a church in a town known for its curative springs, I recalled my own experience tasting similarly hailed waters. Years ago, my wife and I went to Bath, England, where in the ancient Roman occupation era, baths were created, and over the centuries, the “curative” nature of the waters was hailed. You could request a glass of the water straight from the source.
At best, it takes just one small sip to admit such water is an acquired taste…
Likewise, we can read church histories as a combination of God’s goodness and our own struggles to live up to being a “chosen” people. The water may taste bitter at times, yet truth-telling in church history (local and global, historic and contemporary alike) makes us aware that we have the treasures in clay jars, and if not for the Living Water of Jesus Christ, we would have little hope if left to our own devices.
We can read church histories as a combination of God’s goodness and our own struggles to live up to being a “chosen” people. The water may taste bitter at times, yet truth-telling in church history (local and global, historic and contemporary alike) makes us aware that we have the treasures in clay jars, and if not for the Living Water of Jesus Christ, we would have little hope if left to our own devices.
Again, we return to why water keeps us alive. We cannot live without water. In the Bible, we encounter many times when water provides the backdrop for stories. (And in the story of Noah’s ark and the parting of the Red Sea, much of the spectacle and drama.)
Jesus turned water into wine. (Or grape juice, depending on the Baptists who tell it.) Jesus gave us the wonderful language of the “Living Waters” that truly sustain us, just as He did with other teachings about the “Bread of Life.” Without water (physical and spiritual), can we live?
Among the clergy who served in Clifton Springs, I noted the remarkable ministry of the Rev. Dr. Stanley Stuber, who served at Clifton Springs First Baptist from 1928 to 1938 and then as a chaplain at the Clifton Springs Sanitarium (1938-1941).
Before realizing his connection to this town, I had encountered Dr. Stuber many times in my own explorations of 20th-century Baptist history. After his tenure in Clifton Springs, he went on to several positions involved in Northern Baptist national leadership and significant ecumenical work, including being an observer at the Second Vatican Council’s sessions in the 1960s. His legacy of service to the greater Baptist and Christian traditions continues with the annual lectureship named for him at the Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School.
Of course, much of the 20th century mirrored the 19th century’s experience: marked by times of challenge. First Baptist of Clifton Springs notes the church struggled with the Great Depression and the impact of two World Wars. From the 20th century into the 21st, I have learned being a local church pastor that the social and economic fate of a community inevitably impacts the church. Upstate New York has known its fair share of economic successes, yet we have endured much challenge as onetime New York born and bred businesses (GE, Kodak, IBM) have had their ebbs and flows.
One longtime pastor of Clifton Springs Baptist was the Rev. Albert Kamm, who served in the pulpit from 1948 to 1952 and then as the “interim” from 1964 to his retirement in 1998 when he was recognized as Pastor Emeritus. Toward the end of his tenure, Rev. Kamm gave some observations about how a church maintains its dedication and perseverance:
1) A church needs a reason for being.
2) It must turn its attention to the world outside.
3) The place of the Bible in the church's life must not be forgotten.
4) A praying church is essential.
5) A growing church is one in which each member is aware that they have a
ministry to fulfill.
As Clifton Springs begins its 151st year, they are a small membership church (under twenty on an average Sunday morning), and they also begin a pastoral search with their current minister’s retirement at year’s end. Having the privilege of the pulpit at their anniversary, I asked how they felt about living in this present day. One might be tempted to think “what’s next?” or “this was great, but what does the future hold?” in a time when church attendance is sparse and financial uncertainties abound locally and globally.
The next chapter for Clifton Springs, and for the greater Church, has yet to be written. I cannot tell the stories of what Christ will do in our midst tomorrow, but I know that the many good things God does amid God’s people are without end.
Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot is executive minister, American Baptist Churches of New York State.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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