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Just 12 months ago, something wasn’t right at the Cutler United Methodist Church.
Oh, Ruth Farris continued to play the piano for hymns every Sunday, just as she has for the past 12 years. And John and Janine Drouin’s family with five kids kept showing up for Sunday school.
But the spirit of a thriving community just wasn’t there. It showed in the collection plate. It showed in the pews.
The members were nearly $20,000 in debt, in arrears to the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. They had taken out a loan to help with payments. They were without a minister, and for about two months, relied on local clergy and lay people who were available.
With as few as 11 people attending on some Sundays, they talked about closing down.
“We were so broken,” Janine Drouin said of the not-too-distant past.
Then – just at the eleventh hour – everything changed.
The conference sent in a temporary pastor, David Arruda. The man who lives and worships in Somerset, Mass., agreed to drive 400 miles each way every weekend to the Maine coast – just to help the church in the remote fishing village find its way again.
He did not just agree to do that, he wanted to. The folks of Cutler, population 623, called him crazy at first, but they came to understand his commitment.
This weekend, as the members celebrate Easter, they can connect with the resurrection of their own congregation.
Challenged to recommit to their church community, the members regrouped.
The loan was repaid by December. By June, they expect to have paid their entire apportionment to the conference for 2006.
Using gifts from several members, the church was able to purchase more than $2,000 of heating oil in advance of winter.
The members also made a donation of $1,825 toward Hurricane Katrina relief.
Closer to home, they built a back deck and wheelchair ramp for one of their own, Cutler lobsterman Steve Taylor. He had been paralyzed in a backyard accident in October, and the ramp was in place for his December homecoming.
Thinking beyond its own financial woes, the church took the additional step to tithe 10 percent of its collection plate every Sunday to the North Perry United Methodist Church, another church in Washington County looking toward revitalization.
In planning for the day – June 30 – when Arruda moves on to minister to another struggling congregation within New England, the church has set aside the salary for the incoming pastor for the balance of 2006. As of the board’s April meeting, the church was just $100 short of reaching that goal.
Even better than money in the bank, the church now has a strong future in its children. Twenty-five young people took part in the Christmas pageant. In March, the Sunday school group put on a spaghetti supper – with no parents allowed in the kitchen.
“There have been many, many blessings here,” member Karen Staake said a few Sundays ago. “We came to the edge of closing. Now we have watched people without hope get hope.”
The handsome white wooden church, built in 1913, stands high on the hill overlooking Cutler Harbor. For decades it was the centerpiece of the community. It was closed during World War II, but reopened in 1946.
According to figures from the New England Conference, the Cutler church hit a low point in 1999, when there were 48 members but an average attendance of 18. The Rev. Betty Palmer arrived in 2000, and average attendance in 2001 and 2002 jumped to 62.
But attendance dropped in 2003 and 2004 to about 30 each Sunday. Palmer later left to focus on the Jacksonville United Methodist Church in East Machias, and the Cutler congregation dwindled.
Then Arruda – sent by the conference – arrived last July. He asked for no salary, just fuel and toll expenses for his drive up every Friday and his return home every Sunday.
He had heard about the struggles in Cutler, and he thought he could help.
Having grown up Catholic, he came to the Methodist faith in 1992. Now 47, he had felt a calling to serve God since his teenage years, but opted for a different sort of high-powered career. Once a consultant to Exxon in Alaska for the Valdez oil spill, he moved into corporate security and management consulting.
Four years ago he gave up the whirlwind work, answered God’s call and entered the ministry. Currently a licensed pastor, he still has five years of academics ahead through the United Methodist Church’s course of study.
Cutler is his first appointment, although he has worked in areas of congregational development and growth since he started on his new path. He designed a program – called the 11th Hour – to revitalize declining churches. He draws from his management past to bring churches back from the brink.
In Cutler, it’s working. The church is alive again. So is the community.
He has a place to stay – someone’s summer home on the harbor that Arruda calls his “million-dollar view.” He has constant invitations to join families for meals, even from families who don’t belong to the church.
He also gets unexpected gifts left in his pickup truck when he’s inside. Blueberries by the gallon was one reminder of where he is serving. So was the bag of live lobsters.
Attendance is back to 30-plus every Sunday. They don’t mind if the pastor wears jeans, and they sing their hymns proudly. They laugh when 79-year-old Ruth Farris on the piano breaks into a fun tune like “Mack the Knife,” which she did last Sunday.
There are about 80 members now, although Arruda tends to downplay the counting of members as a fair indicator of a church’s viability.
“Cutler had some very strong-willed but open-minded folks, in a place that was kind of lost,” he said of his first weeks on the job.
“Coming in, I was very aware of their pain. But I also realized that they could either sit there and wallow in it, or brush it off and move forward.
“They have their independent lifestyle and their hardiness, but they were missing one key element. That was their relationship with Christ.”
Arruda challenged the church-goers to “literally step out of the boat and stretch their faith. … Until they did that, they would not have more faith.”
With their own children representing the church’s joy and inspiration, members apparently listened to Arruda. They liked his suggestion about stretching even further – and signed on to support Shaohannah’s Hope, an adoption ministry led by Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman. The Web site is shaohannahshope.org.
It’s a five-year commitment in which the Cutler church starts a fund to help adoptive families with costs. If the church can raise at least $2,500 in this first year, Chapman will match that.
That would mean that $5,000 is available to help adoptive families within Washington County with costs in 2006.
Next year, the church will dedicate its Shaohannah’s Hope fund to adoptive families within Maine. The third-year proceeds will go to families within New England. The fourth- and fifth-year funds will assist families elsewhere in the nation.
Any family within Washington County needing assistance to cover a current adoption in 2006 can make contact with the Cutler church.
It’s that simple.
And that’s what’s happened with the Cutler Methodists in just a year.
Arruda said he is amazed his time is nearly over. June 24 will be his last Sunday in the pulpit, although he will counsel to families and individuals through the end of June.
His own family has stayed back in Massachusetts while he travels to Maine every weekend. But for Easter, his wife and 15-year-old son are coming along to Cutler – Jane for the second time and Matt for the first time.
While Arruda works as a carpenter during the week back home, Jane took a second job on weekends just to support his dedication to Cutler and his faith.
Before his experience ends in June, Arruda wants to share the love he has found Down East.
“In this very short amount of time, I know I have made lifelong friends,” Arruda said.
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