Reinventing the Church in the Genesee Region

The Genesee Region Initiative, one of the partnership dioceses’ signature initiatives, entered a new phase recently when the Rev. CanonCathy Dempesy-Sims, partnership canon for pastoral care and congregational support, accepted Bishop Sean’s invitation to assume clergy leadership of the project.

Dempesy-Sims, who has been serving as part-time priest-in-charge at St. James, Batavia, in addition to her diocesan duties, will now devote 90 percent of her time to shepherding the initiative that began in 2017 under the leadership of the Rev. Colleen McHale O’Connor, who retired last month after 17 years as the priest at St. Mark’s, LeRoy.

Of the deanery’s nine churches in the three-county region between Buffalo and Rochester, only St. James has an average Sunday attendance of more than 40, and five churches have an average attendance of 15 or below. But rather than close or merge these churches, the diocesan partnership is experimenting with new ways to restore their spiritual vitality and establish them as important contributors to the life of their communities.

“We have seen what happens when a church organization goes in and just closes churches because they can’t afford to survive,” says Dempesy-Sims, who, in her new role, will still devote 10 percent of her time to providing pastoral care to clergy and congregations in the Diocese of Western New York. “But if we believe the brand of Christianity that is the Episcopal Church is the way to go, we have to figure out a way to have a gospel presence in these communities. The only way we can do that is by pooling our resources, sharing clergy, sharing lay leadership and sharing administrative stuff like making bulletins and stuff like that.

“If the church is going to reinvent itself, this is one of the ways it is going to reinvent itself.”

O’Connor was the part-time rector of St. Mark’s Church in LeRoy and St. Paul’s Church in Stafford in 2017, when she attended a meeting convened by the Rev. Barbara Price, who was then Bishop R. William Franklin’s consultant for congregational mentoring, to discuss the plight of small churches that could not afford clergy to celebrate the Eucharist or provide pastoral care. From this meeting emerged a plan for two or three priests and a deacon to rotate among the six of the eight parishes in the Genesee deanery that did not have full-time clergy, providing a regular Eucharistic rhythm to worship in the region.

“What made this model most appealing was that it built on a history of collaboration already present in the Genesee region—a collaboration that included a various times worship services, adult formation, youth activities, ministry projects and a deanery choir,” O’Connor said. The initiative was supported by a grant from the Diocese of Western New York, which reaffirmed its support in 2020, with Bishop Sean’s encouragement, through a three-year, $20,000 grant that paid for more time from deanery-based supply clergy.

“The first iteration of the project was brilliant,” Dempesy-Sims says. “Colleen established these relationships with all these small churches and then said, ‘How about if we share some clergy?’ … She had the relationships. Congregations in the deanery were getting communion three times a month.”

During the pandemic, however, as donations to churches diminished and the roster of parishes participating in the initiative shifted, the future of the initiative was in doubt. Bishop Sean asked Dempesy-Sims first to take on her new role at St. James, which did not participate in the initiative at first, and then to take on expanded responsibilities.

“The reason I said yes was we need to figure out how to make projects like this work from a standpoint of structure, to show people priests from many congregations can share ministry, and that we can make it at least close to self-supporting,” Dempesy-Sims says. “And also to get congregations to see that there are new ways to do church.”

O’Connor had long understood that in addition to deploying a small cadre of priests and deacons across the region on Sunday mornings, it was also necessary to invite people into church buildings at other times during the week. In 2013, she, the Rev. Joseph Kozlowski and the Rev. Deacon Robin Kozlowski had started an ecumenical weeknight faith sharing group at St. Paul’s, Holley, which had gone almost dormant in the long wake of the 2003 closure of a chemical plant which left the town with heightened unemployment and a Superfund site. Their effort, which has evolved into a monthly Sunday night Eucharist, followed by an ecumenical faith-sharing conversation, kept the church in the community’s eye.

Dempesy-Sims is also committed to diversifying the way the church reaches out to surrounding communities.

“We have to figure out a way to be there for the lost and the lonely in our region,” she says, adding that the members of these congregations “know what the people around them want and need.”

The Rev. Diane Cox, a registered nurse who is the Genesee Region’s new faith community nurse, is part of that plan. “She goes everywhere, my absolute traveling deacon,” Dempesy-Sims says. Ordained a deacon by Bishop Sean in January, Cox is caring for people in the Genesee congregations and sparking opportunities for training, outreach and education on the health issues faced by many older parishioners and community members.

The remainder of the clergy team is spread strategically across the region. The Rev. Nancy Guenther is vicar at St. John’s, Medina. The Rev. Kozlowski continues to serve in Holley, and also at Christ Church, Albion. The Rev. Chris O’Connor is priest-in-charge at St. Luke’s, Attica and also serves at Holy Apostles, Perry. The Rev. Carmen Seufert serves St. Paul’s, Stafford. And Dempesy-Sims is priest-in-charge at Batavia and also serves at Leroy.

The Rev. Deacon Robin Kozlowski serves the churches in Attica and Holley, while the Rev. Deacon Diana Leiker serves primarily in Batavia.

Dempesy-Sims sees many strengths in the region’s churches, some still waiting to be tapped. It’s a matter of “igniting their creativity, pulling out the knowledge and the wisdom they have.”

St Luke’s, Attica was recently able to repair its long-broken HVAC system after Dempesy-Sims helped them repurpose, with the approval of the bishop and standing committee, a $66,000 clergy housing fund the parish was not using because it did not have a full-time priest. St. Luke’s is now able to host evening programs including book studies. “I believe it can be a hub for the village of Attica, which has gone through a lot of economic downturn,” Dempesy-Sims says.

She has similar hopes for the undercroft of Christ Church, Albion, which sold a building it owned five years ago to an artist who has turned it into a gallery. “How can we be part of this?” Dempesy-Sims asks. “Is there a way to partner with some of these artistic groups in helping them gain a foothold?”

These potential new relationships would augment existing community outreach efforts across the deanery such as backpack and lunch programs at St. Mark’s, LeRoy and the ecumenical Blessing Box ministry that St. James shares with two other local churches.

Recently, St. James teamed with St. Peter’s, Eggertsville, about 35 miles west, to sell pierogis to benefit Ukranian refugees through Episcopal Relief & Development.

“Despite pouring rain they sold out in a few hours,” Dempesy-Sims says. The effort earned $3,000.

“For me the most important thing is building the relationships,” Dempesy-Sims says. “Building collaborations is building relationships first. And it can’t be from the top down. It needs to be relationships that begin with the congregations.”

It takes time, she says. “It has to be for the long haul, not the short term. It’s not something you can do effectively in a crisis.” Although, she adds, “a crisis can be a real motivator.”

This article was originally published on the Episcopal Partnership website.