ROANOKE, Va. — By a vote of 30 to 5, Airlee Court Baptist Church in Roanoke voted on Sunday morning, March 14, not to give itself to Journey Church, a growing Baptist fellowship in the area.
“We would have had to get rid of all of our staff along with giving up all of our assets,” reported Madeline Caldwell, 83-year-old church treasurer. “Our property is valued at over a million dollars.”
Even so, it wasn’t the property that bothered her, Caldwell says. Rather, it was that “we would not have been allowed to serve,” she says. “All the people who are there now have served for many years. I am 83 years old and I am the treasurer so I’m automatically on the stewardship committee and I’m on the personnel committee, and I volunteer one day a week at the hospital and have for 20 years. This is just the kind of people who come here.”
Caldwell and the others who attend Airlee Court know that they cannot go on indefinitely unless something changes. In 1986 they averaged 170 in worship. By 2008, they had dropped to 60. Worship attendance was not reported for 2009, but Sunday school attendance averaged 28.
“Maybe many young persons would like to come and join us,” Caldwell suggests. “We just have to find them. We had two visitors this morning, both young people. I just have a vision that we are not ready to be taken over. Now the name change and giving up the building didn’t bother me as much as not being allowed to serve and the others feel about the same way.”
Michael DuVal, lead pastor of Journey Church, is sympathetic to Caldwell and others of her age. "We have several older persons who are part of Journey who serve in important positions. There would certainly have been a place of service for them here."
Typically, when a church is considering giving its property away it is understood that structure and leadership need to change. Glenn Akins, assistant executive director for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and who often works with churches facing possible closing, affirms that leadership has to change for things to be different.
Airlee is currently without a pastor. “If we could get a young and, I won’t even say dynamic, if we could get a steadfast young pastor who would make visits I think we could see things turn around. We started seeing this under Brother Bob [previous pastor]. We had three or four join under him.”
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.