Leap of Faith

It could have been just another story of a large inner-city church closing down. The congregation aged, the endowment shrunk, the heating bills became unbearable. It’s a sad tale we’ve seen from the North Side to the South Side, East to West, where empty sanctuaries sit as mute testimony to the downsizing of mainstream American Protestantism. 

Just stop by the corner of East Colvin and South Salina streets and contemplate the mammoth structure that once was South Presbyterian Church, a monument to a different era when such churches were the center of thriving communities. Now it’s a hulk stripped of its Tiffany stained-glass windows by the man who bought the church as the congregation wheezed its final breaths. The building has since been occupied by the Great Grace Cathedral, and the remains of the South church congregation have merged with Onondaga Valley Presbyterian.

Like one large political party whose symbol is the elephant, those largely white worship communities failed to adapt to a demographic shift in Syracuse now a half-century old. Many parishioners moved to the suburbs, others have gone to their final reward, while the buildings that housed the faith of their fathers sit like mute witnesses to a style of religion that no longer speaks the language of the neighborhoods they inhabit.

But the closing of First Presbyterian Church United (FPCU), which backs up to Interstate 690 on West Genesee Street just a few blocks from the core of downtown, has led to something new, an ecclesiastical innovation based on something fundamental: food. Its founders call it Isaiah’s Table. Isaiah, according to scripture, was an Old Testament prophet who answered the call of God to tell the people to live righteously and then later foretold the coming of Christ.

Nineteen-year-old Nottingham High School graduate Pearl Fischer is its youngest member. She says the difference between the traditional worship at FPCU and the Saturday morning gatherings at Isaiah’s Table is “like comparing apples and oranges.” After years of trying with little success to reach out to the neighbors who surround them, the remnant of the First Presbyterian congregation may be finding its way to a simpler, smaller way of being a church in the city.

Sunday Schooled

It’s been a long time coming. FPCU is that enormous block building with the square steeple tower that you see off to the right as you slow down to turn onto West Genesee Street from I-690 coming from the west. Since its founding 175 years ago, the church has been the spiritual home to hundreds of families, many of them among Syracuse’s wealthy elite, and has spawned any number of other congregations in town. One of these offspring, Park Central Presbyterian on East Fayette Street, was the result of a split over the issue of slavery (First Presbyterian took the side of the slaveholders) 15 years before the Civil War. 

Earlier this year, the old congregation that inhabited First Presbyterian called it quits. After decades of struggle that included numerous changes of ministers and a merger with the former East Genesee Presbyterian Church, FPCU went out with a bang on Easter Sunday. The faithful gathered for one last service before turning the keys over to the Presbytery of Cayuga-Syracuse, which now rents the sanctuary on Sunday mornings to an evangelical group known as the Missio Church. 

The Presbytery, itself in the midst of downsizing, is the local district grouping of Presbyterian churches, much like a Roman Catholic diocese. Nationwide there are nearly 2.3 million Presbyterians, organized in 11,000 congregations, but like most historically white denominations, their numbers have been steadily declining since the late 1960s. A majority of the remaining congregations have less than 100 active members, which makes keeping open those big drafty buildings a daunting challenge. 

Presbyterians did a good deal of missionary work in Korea, which is why, when East Genesee Presbyterian merged with First Presbyterian about 20 years ago, the structure on the East Side was converted to a Korean Presbyterian church.

“In order to stay open we would have had to find a way to buck the national trend,” says Michael Sponsler, a 52-year-old chemistry professor at Syracuse University who, along with his wife Diana and their two daughters, were longtime members of FPCU. “We had a deficit budget for many years, and were unable to find a way to increase membership. It was sad to see First Presbyterian United close, but now we are looking at something different. We are moving from a model based on attracting new members to a model of serving the community.”

Isaiah’s Table gathers every Saturday morning in a small chapel in the rear of FPCU. According to Karen Wolff, one of the group’s lay leaders, the idea sprang from a Bible study group that had been meeting in the church. Wolff says they could see the handwriting on the wall, and didn’t want the church to keep on trying to keep the past alive until it had spent its endowment down to nothing. Leaving the physical space, it seems, has freed them to be a different kind of spiritual entity.

Wolff sees their new model of what a church can be as something on the cutting edge. “This is the first new church development in the Presbyterian Church {nationwide} that does not have a planted minister. It is elder-led,” she explains. While not a minister, Wolff has considerable congregational experience, including 11 years serving Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church as the DeWitt church’s Christian education director. 

The community has been encouraged through the national church, which has a program called “New Beginnings” designed to tutor congregations in transformation. They employ a part-time interim leader who keeps them on task, and are hoping to have a seminary student assigned as an intern for the coming year.

When Isaiah’s Table gathers on Saturdays they start with food. At about 9:20 a.m. they set up tables in a small chapel in the back of the old church. By 9:30 a.m. members have arrived with a hot casserole, bread and fruit, orange juice and oatmeal. There is a Sunday school class, but no collection plate is passed. A box sits at the door for those who wish to contribute. 

On a typical weekend 35 or more people will gather. About one-third of the participants are refugees from First Presbyterian; the rest are new arrivals, people from the neighborhood who come in search of fellowship and food. According to Diana Sponsler, if they keep growing at the rate they are, they will soon outgrow the small chapel.

Breaking Bread

Food is central to all religions. Every faith has its prohibitions on what can be eaten, and most faiths include celebrations that involve food. The Christian scriptures refer to Jesus as the Bread of Life. His final act on Earth, if you believe scripture or Leonardo da Vinci, was a dinner with his friends, known as the Last Supper. And every weekend around the world, billions of Christians gather to break bread in a celebration of his life and death known as the Eucharist.

With bread so central to the faith, it is not surprising that the group chose the motto, “Grace, Hope, Food for All” to identify their mission in the community. They also planted a community garden this summer. It gives Wolff hope to recall that although the original parishioners who planted the three raised beds did not return to water them, the vegetables survived a pretty dry summer. 

“The neighbors watered them,” she says with a smile. “We harvested tons.”

They open a food pantry on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3 p.m., and on the third Saturday of each month between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

At 10 a.m. on a recent Saturday the meal is over and the church service begins. There are only a few musical instruments, but the hymns are well known and widely shared, and the order of service proceeds like it would in most any Presbyterian church—a greeting, hymns, Bible readings, perhaps a children’s time—until sermon time. The group has no minister, and the sermon, such as it is, comes from the people, much like in the Quaker tradition. It is a conversation, not a lecture. 

“We read scripture,” says Wolff, “and then share. The things that are shared are inspirational. There are miracles weekly. At times we’ve run out of food, and someone comes through the door bringing something with them.”

Their statement of faith is quite open-minded: “At Isaiah’s Table, we seek to have unity in essential matters of faith, liberty in non-essential matters of faith, and charity in all matters of faith.” When they gather there is a diversity of viewpoints on social issues. Some of the guests are homeless, some are dealing with mental illness; all are welcome at the table.

“It’s a major shift in philosophy,” says Michael Sponsler. “FPCU was historically a church of affluence. The church needed to adapt to a changing demographic. We have shifted from a programmatic church to a pastoral church.”

As for the church building, the entire campus, including the manse, the sanctuary and a smaller building that once housed a preschool and offices of the Hiawatha Council of the Boy Scouts of America, is now for sale. Before it closed, says Wolff, the Presbytery held an auction of “anything that wasn’t nailed down, and a few things that were.” That money, plus a bit of what was left of the church’s endowment, will help fund the food pantry at Isaiah’s Table through the end of 2013. After that the group is on its own. 

They appear to be content with breaking new ground, even if the path forward is not clear or smooth. “There is something about being in the city,” says Wolff, a 57-year-old home aide who lives in her native DeWitt. “A lot of stereotypes get broken down when you look people in the eye. We didn’t know what we were doing when we started. We just put out the tables together, serve the food, worship together and clean up as a community.”

“The people who come here now have struggles,” says Fischer. “They don’t have a lot of money. Some of them are homeless. Not everyone knows how to talk nice. It’s a different style, a different message. I personally love it this way. We still love the old way of worshipping, but we are moving past it. We are changing with the times.”

There is an air of humility and gratitude in the group, now freed from the pressure of maintaining their old facility and their old way of worshipping. “We had to let go of a lot of stuff,” says Wolff, “including being perfect. When we started we thought we had to do things really well, and now we think that we just have to do things.”

Adds Fischer: “We’re not really about membership the way we used to be. There are people who come now who never would have felt comfortable in the old church. I love it. This is where The Church is headed.” 

Anyone wishing to be in touch with this group can contact them via their website, isaiahstable.org. They worship on Saturday mornings, beginning with breakfast at 9:30 a.m., and hold Bible study on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. All their meetings are held in the chapel at 620 W. Genesee St.