Due to dwindling finances and maintenance costs, the Knowlton-Mountain Valley Pastoral Charge has decided to put the Knowlton United Church building and property up for sale. The decision comes as Knowlton’s St. Paul’s Anglican Church tries to sell part of its land to a developer, making the Knowlton United Church the second church in the village to consider selling off assets in order to remain a part of the community. 

The Knowlton United Church has been described as an “iconic” landmark in Knowlton that symbolizes “community gathering.” The present building dates back to 1895, but the church has been on the property since 1855. The congregation itself recently celebrated 225 years of being a community of faith in Knowlton. 

Steve Lawson, Reverend of Knowlton’s United Church, said that people should expect to see a "for sale" sign on the church grounds as early as this week. For now, the congregation will continue holding its services in the church on the first three Sunday’s of every month and it will be open to the different community groups that depend on the space for their activities. The congregation hopes that whoever purchases the building will keep it as a community hub and a place of worship.

“It comes down to dwindling finances, that’s the bottom line. Eventually you start to run out of money because the numbers of people participating in the life of the church gets smaller and smaller as the years go by. The money just isn’t there. The way we receive our support is through offerings, both during worship time but also through the year people who support the church donate as well. When you total it all up, it is less every year,” explained Lawson. “We had a cushion for a while from the sale of another church, which was a part of our pastoral charge, but those finances, when we looked at them seriously, we said we really have maybe two years left of finances to keep the church going in terms of maintenance.”

In a previous interview with CIDI, Lawson said that Knowlton United Church is “down to about 60 households with the average attendance of around 20 people on a Sunday morning” compared to the 50 to 100 people, if not more, that used to attend the church in the past. 

“It costs a lot to heat the church, insurance for the church, electricity, all kinds of bills that we pay through those offerings and donations. It was becoming too expensive, simple as that,” he said. 

Various investments have been made over the years to bring the United Church’s space up-to-date and to make it a useable space for the community, which is still the congregation’s vision for the building when sold. The Wellness Group, the Knowlton Players,’ the Community Singers, and local artists are just some of the groups that benefit from the space.

“We have made changes for the community and that’s our vision, still, that the building remain a building for the community. This depends on who is interested in buying it of course. We’re hoping that there is enough interest out there in the community from individuals, groups, organizations, and even the town itself to look at the building, and the property, and say this is worth keeping and using for the sake of the community,” emphasized Lawson. 

Lawson added that the congregation also has the desire to continue worshipping in the church, but if it can’t it will seek out another space in the area to rent. 

“It’s not necessary. If someone bought it and said ‘sorry, we have other plans’ we would look elsewhere to continue to worship. We are not closing down as a congregation, we want to make that clear to people. We are selling the building and the property, but we are remaining as a church. The community of faith still exists and that’s not being closed down because we enjoy being together and there is enough of us to do that,” he explained. “It’s just that expenses will be less if we didn’t have this building to maintain.”

There is a condition set in the contract between the United Church and its realtor that gives it the right to refuse, according to Lawson, which it hopes will help find the right buyer that wants to support this vision. 

“We wanted that in there for sure because some sales don’t have that. You are obliged to pick the best one or one of them. This way we can say ‘no’ without giving any reasons why, only because we don’t want it to be sold to that person or that group. We do have that right,” he explained. “The town still has an interest in it, we know that, so we are hoping for that. We’ve also heard, as I’m sure the rumour mill out there has said, that there’s a lot of interested individuals that might work together and consider buying it too. We are optimistic, we’re hopeful, and we are relying on the creativity of the town. This is probably one of the most creative towns to live in and people have great ideas as to how to work together as a community.”

Richard Burcombe, mayor for the Town of Brome Lake, said that it’s concerning not only for the municipality, but for him as a citizen, to see the number of churches that are struggling to keep their doors open. 

According to research conducted by the National Trust for Canada in 2020 - a national registered charity with the mandate to encourage the preservation of Canada’s historic places and heritage - more than 9,000  out of Canada’s 27,000  “places of faith” could close permanently within the next decade. Canada’s places of faith also took the top spot on the “National Trust Endangered Places List 2020.” A 2021 Statistics Canada Census that looked at Canada’s religious and ethnocultural diversity found that more than one third of Canada’s population reported having no religious affiliation or being secular, numbers which have doubled since 2001. In 2021, just over half (53.3%) of the Canadian population reported being affiliated with a Christian religion, down from 77.1% in 2001 and 67.3% in 2011, with the United Church only making up 3.3% of Canada’s population as a whole.

“You can see the evolution, how things have evolved over the last 20 to 30 years. The congregations got smaller and smaller, and finally that was it. Most of them are in financial difficulties to keep it open and maintain it,” mentioned Burcombe. 

Burcombe confirmed to CIDI that the municipality has been in talks with Knowlton’s United Church over the last year-and-a-half to see what they could do about the building, and they hired an architect to evaluate it. The Knowlton United Church is listed as a heritage building by the municipality. 

“It was always interesting to see from that perspective what it could be used for, but at the same time of course you must understand that we already have a big community centre in Knowlton on Victoria Street. The architecture and the heritage of it is very interesting. There’s other organizations, I can’t get into detail right now, but there’s other interests too. We have to look at all sides of it,” he explained. “We are passing a resolution in July. We have a pre-emption to match first-refusal, as they say, or to match any offer that comes in. We will be looking at all of the options and then elected officials will decide.”

Listen to the full interview below to hear more from Lawson and Burcombe: