SOUTH DEERFIELD — It was a day filled with laughter and tears for the crowd of about 50 gathered at South Deerfield Congregational Church on Sunday afternoon.
The tears were the good kind, the type that results from remembering the many years spent worshiping in the church together. The church will stop services after Jan. 8, and Sunday’s event served as part of the healing and celebration process for those who have attended the church for much of their lives.
Co-moderators of the church Jack Cooper and Rick Parker spoke as well as current pastor, Roger Daly. They showed a video slideshow of holidays, weddings, birthdays, plays and Sunday school at the church.
Then they invited members of the congregation to speak and share memories, some funny and some more emotional and heartfelt.
One women told many stories about the children at church over the years, and watching families grow up through the years. The room busted up in laughter when she told the story of a young boy who had eaten too much candy before a Christmas Eve service and promptly threw up in the aisle during the service.
At other times the mood was more somber. Tears streamed down cheeks as the slideshow rotated through old memories at the church while the song “Hallelujah” played and attendees began singing along quietly in their seats.
Everyone in the room was on a first-name basis, and many had been going to the church for decades.
Parker thanked Daly for his work over the past two years and said the pastor had given “his heart and soul” to the church and helped start conversations that allowed for worshipers to decide the fate of the church.
“It’s been a wonderful thing for me, because it has been possible for me to come to the end of my ministry and realize there is truly a right way to do this,” Daly said.
The move to close the church has been slowly planned with the congregation for the past two years, according to Cooper and Daly. The congregation voted in April of this year to close.
The plan is for a transition to a “legacy church” where the remaining resources will be directed toward other charitable works or activities. Cooper said this was the “most faithful, most loving option” for the church.
Several items from the church have already been donated to other churches, so items the South Deerfield Congregational Church is no longer using can benefit other faith communities.
While the moderators acknowledged the underlying sadness that the community would not continue, the event was more about the gratitude of the church having a 200-year-old life and the significance of the church to the community.
“We get to write our last chapters, and we get to do it through our faith,” Cooper said.
Those who spoke were in agreement that no matter what, the spirit and nature of the work the church has done would live on.
“There’s such a spirit of generosity and mission, and it’s going to live on, wherever we find ourselves,” Cooper said.
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