Trinity UMC is closing

Trinity UMC is closing. From the Times Union: “Church members voted May 4 at a Special Charge Conference to discontinue Trinity United Methodist Church, the last Methodist church in Albany.” I knew it was coming, but it still hurts, even though I left there a quarter of a century ago.

As I’ve almost certainly told before, I didn’t attend church much from when I left for college in 1971 until 1982. My grandmother Gertrude Williams had died on Super Bowl Sunday in Charlotte, NC, but her funeral wasn’t until May, held at the Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton, NY.  I sang in the choir and realised I missed singing in a church choir.

So, I started church shopping with my girlfriend at the time. In December 1982, a tenor from the choir named Gray Taylor stood in front of the congregation and announced that the choir was seeking more people. I said, “That’s what I was waiting to hear. ” In January 1983, I joined the choir.

Music

It was a good group, with 25-30 people singing. We’d participate in Christmas caroling sponsored by the local Business Improvement District. Many of us have kept in touch with each other even after I left the church in 2000. Indeed, a couple of them followed me to First Presbyterian.

I distinctly remember Eric Strand, a choir director in the early ’90s. We watched the Today Show when Bobby McFerrin performed a few songs from the Medicine Man album. A couple of years later, he had three of us sing the 23rd Psalm from that album. It was high in my range, so I sang it in falsetto; my now-wife said that somebody thought I must be gay, which I thought was absurd.

The administrative board decided to have an “interest” fair at the church, trying to get people to join small groups: knitting, card playing, or whatnot. Most of them didn’t stick, but one that did was a book club which lasted about a decade, once a month, ten months a year. I read many books  I might not have; specifically, I chose A Handmaid’s Tale when we had to read a novel. Most of the group were women, mostly a generation older than I, whom I was very fond of.

Once we had an intergenerational dance event. It must have been in the late ’80s, because I remember from some of the latter music included Bobby Brown’s My Perogative, with all the young kids, who are now about 50, dancing to it. I bought that Bobby Brown CD primarily in honor of that event.

Cathedral

I served as a docent for that building at least a few times. It’s a great building, and there are some very historic stained glass windows there. I learned a lot about the history of Methodism, from the racially tinged Central Jurisdiction to the 1968 merger of the Methodist Church and the United Brethren Church to form the UMC.

I was very involved in the lay leadership, serving on the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. For a time, I was vice-chair of the Administrative Board; then the chair resigned, and I became chair.  At a different point, I chaired the Council on Ministries, which served as the engine of outreach activities. Our church would table on Lark Street at various events.

We occasionally engaged in different types of services. There was a Taize series, which is a very meditative format. The church had two different Spanish language congregations there in the ’90s, which the church wanted, but the cultural divide became problematic.

There were several opportunities for Bible study, often led by Jim Kalas. I also participated in something called Disciple, which was held at my then former girlfriend/now wife’s apartment, during which I read the entirety of the Bible in 34 weeks; reading the whole thing wasn’t required, but if you if you’re gonna read 48 chapters of Genesis you might as well read the other two, right?

Food, of course

A social group called the Ogden Fellowship met monthly, which featured a speaker; local newspeople Chris Kapostasy Jansing and the late Ed Dague spoke at a couple of them. Fran Allee was that event’s chief cook, although she encouraged others to prepare food. Twice, my future wife and I prepared Shepherd’s pie for 40.

I experienced love and marriage at Trinity more than once. For certain, there’s a lot more I could share.

I stopped attending Trinity in 2000 over the Troubles, though I returned to Trinity one last weekend, singing at the funeral of campus minister Frank Snow on a Saturday. The next day, the weather was such that First Pres was closed, but Trinity, two blocks away, was open, so I sang there.

Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

When there was a FOCUS service – First Pres and Trinity were both members – and it was held at Trinity, it was a tad awkward early on. Apparently, my choir music slot (#6, I was told) still had my name on it. Three and four years after my departure, people kept asking me when I would return to Trinity; that would never happen.

But I still feel enormously sad at the church’s demise. “On June 22, the church will host its last Sunday service, accompanied by a farewell video that members are encouraged to add to and share their favorite memories from the church.”