An article from the London Free Press on the decline of the mainline church. Read it all here:

On a windy spring morning, Margaret Carroll makes her way with the help of a cane past the yellow brick church on the gravel side road north of London.

St Patrick’s Anglican Church, Saintsbury, is where she worshipped weekly for more than half a century.

It’s where she was married, where both her babies were baptized, where she taught Sunday school to a boisterous class of youngsters, where she was church warden.

The sign on the church still reads, “Worship on the Lord’s Day, 10:30 a.m.”

But the door is padlocked, and boards now cover some of the windows.

The end came for St. Patrick’s 18 months ago, when a handful of parishioners and clergy held a service to deconsecrate the 115-year-old building and close the doors.

“It was sad, very sad. There were a lot of Kleenexes used that day,” said Carroll.

“But what can you do? We had only about six people going at the end. There was no organist. A minister came from Exeter once a month for communion. The rest of the time we ran the service ourselves,” said Carroll.

If there’s one consolation for the former St. Patrick’s congregation, they’re not alone.

Deconsecrated, dissolved, disbanded, amalgamated — Christian churches from traditionally mainstream denominations are closing by the hundreds across Canada in a wave that shows little sign of receding.

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The Anglican Church of Canada is in the midst of a vigorous review of its congregations.

In British Columbia, Anglican churches were evaluated against a set of criteria, including the need for a minimum congregation of 150 people.

Saying a culture change was needed for the church to continue, the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia in January announced it was recommending the “de-establishment” of 19 churches, more than one-quarter of its churches on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

In the London region, statistics published by the Anglican Diocese of Huron indicate that dozens of its churches would fail to meet the viability tests used in B.C.

“We are taking a different approach,” said Rev. Keith Nethery, rector at St. Stephen’s Memorial Anglican Church in London With the help of a consultant who has worked with other Anglican diocese in Canada, the Huron Diocese has formed a strategic planning group and conducted a detailed congregation-by-congregation review, examining everything from population densities and demographic trends in an area to determine what needs to be done to modernize a church building and improve its curb appeal.

The report will help some congregations to revitalize. In other cases, there may be church closings.

Nethery said the diocese is working to find the right decisions.

“The last thing you want to do is close a church and then find out a couple of years later you need a church in that community,” he said.