ABOVE: St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, located at 102 N. Park Street in Fairmont. The congregation will soon vacate the building of the oldest church in Fairmont but use Grace Lutheran Church for worship services.

FAIRMONT– Sometime in its 150th year, the parish at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Fairmont will be vacating its church building at 102 N. Park Street and will instead utilize Grace Lutheran Church for weekly services. The church is the oldest in Fairmont, having been formed by English settlers in 1876.

The first church stood where it currently is. A new church building, which is what is being used today, was rebuilt in the 1970s. It remains in good condition and is not in need of any major repairs. Dwindling membership is the catalyst for the upcoming change.

“We’re fully functional,” said Reverend George Favell. “It’s just that we’re running out of money.”

“Like a lot of other churches, participation is down from what it used to be. Part of Fairmont’s issue is there’s not as many kids as there were,” added Bob Luedtke, a long-time member of the church.

This issue, and options to address it, have been discussed for the past few years.

“The congregation had gotten small enough. It’s a nice building, but it’s expensive to keep up,” Luedtke said. “We started the process of looking and even had a potential buyer but it didn’t work out.”

Talks started again in earnest and a solution came about. The church as a body is not dissolving, but will be without a building to worship in. Luedtke explained that the Episcopal Church has a concordat, an agreement with the ELCA Lutheran Church, which allows them to share a lot of things including ministry and communion.

“Grace Lutheran Church has graciously offered the use of their chapel for our worship,” Luedtke said.

ABOVE: The interior of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Fairmont. This is just the second church building in 150 years. Built in the 1970s, the building remains in good condition.

This means that St. Martin’s will become a mission, rather than a parish. St. Martin’s will keep its own name and its pastor, but will use Grace’s church building for services.

As for what will happen with the St. Martin’s church building, Favell said that members of St. Martins won’t be the ones to decide what to do with the building, rather the Diocese will handle the building.

“Either it will get sold or re-purposed in some way,” he explained.

However, he said they can make suggestions to the Diocese and have been offering ideas as they’ve come from members and others in the community.

“We’re open to more. We just pass those suggestions on and they love that because people who live here know the community and its needs better than someone in Minneapolis trying to figure it out,” Favell said.

It’s still unknown what items in the church St. Martin’s can keep and what will go to the Diocese. There are some stained glass windows from the original church building, as well as the original church bell, named Hilary, that members hope can be preserved.

A July 6, 1976 article from the Sentinel says, “the bell was rededicated Sunday at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, hanging in the notch of an A-shaped belltower which straddles the front sidewalk. Cast in New York in 1879, the bell hung in the old St. Martin’s Church at the same site until 1970 when the church was razed and the bell put in storage.”

ABOVE: A stained glass window that was inside the sanctuary of the original church building is still inside the current church building. The bell, named Hilary, from the original church still hangs outside of the current church building.

It is still undetermined exactly when the change will take place and St. Martin’s will vacate the church building but Favell said the goal is to to be out by the end of the year, likely in the fourth quarter.

“We’re ready to do it. We’ve already written our petition to become a mission but exactly what the steps are now are a little fuzzy,” he said.

Favell added that the Bishop will be in town on Oct. 4 to help them celebrate their 150th anniversary and they were thinking that would be a good time to “turn the page.”

Getting word out about the upcoming change to members has been a long process.

“What I tried to do is help people frame the issue of, the building is not the church. The church is people gathered around Christ,” Favell said. “In our culture, we call these buildings churches and that’s the problem is that we call them not church buildings, but churches. When someone says, ‘the church is closing,’ they probably mean the building.”

He added that while sometimes, unfortunately, the whole church does dissolve due to dwindling members or other reasons, distinguishing the difference between closing a building and closing a church takes some time to get the language sorted out.

While they’ve worked with members on the language, Favell said people are coming around but it’s been more difficult for some people to get used to than others because of the memories attached to the building.

“I was born and raised here, baptized, confirmed,” Luedtke said. “There’s a lot of good memories and it’s a shame that we’re closing the building but it’s not the end of the church. The church is the pastor and the people. It’s not the physical facility.”

ABOVE: A picture taken outside of the original St. Martin’s Episcopal Church building, which was also located at 102 N. Park Street in Fairmont.

St. Martin’s in Fairmont is the only Episcopal church in Martin County. In fact the nearest Episcopal churches are in Mankato and Spirit Lake, Iowa.

“There are a few things that make us distinct from other congregations. We’re probably the most inclusive of the churches around here… literally anybody is welcome to worship and take communion here,” Luedtke said of the Episcopal Church.

Sharing a very similar mindset, Grace Lutheran Church is a good option for St. Martin’s to use.

“They’ve been absolutely incredible and welcoming to us over there,” Favell said.

He has been working with Grace’s senior pastor, Allison Cobb, on some of the details and timing of events.

As for when services for St. Martin’s will be held at Grace Lutheran, Favell said they’ve been given four different possibilities for service times and they’ve put out a survey to members to get their preference.

One thing they know is that St. Martin’s services will no longer be held on Sunday mornings as they’ve been doing, but will instead be on either Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

“That’s an adjustment, too,” Favell said.

Ultimately, he hopes for people to realize that the church is much more than the building, though he recognized that change is hard.

“Sometimes I think God allows these kinds of situations to occur so we reorient our priorities a little bit,” Favell said.

It’s also not off the cards for St. Martin’s to one day be in its own church building again.

“Maybe Fairmont can turn around and if we start growing again. Maybe we’ll get more members and get to the point where we need to buy another building,” Luedtke said.

For now, Favell reiterated that they welcome ideas for use of the building, which they can turn over to the Diocese.

“One of their goals is to be able to make sure that the buildings get utilized in a way that’s a positive contribution to the community,” Favell said.