POYNETTE - It would be cause for a "sad celebration," said longtime Inch United Methodist Church member Rosanne Woodward, if the church should have to close its doors for good after sustaining damage from this summer's floods.

It would be sad because the congregation has existed for 133 years.

But it would be a celebration, according to the Rev. Sharon Smith, because "even though this is history being left behind, we're also going forward into history."

The congregation's dissolution is not a foregone conclusion, said Smith, who is pastor at both Inch United Methodist Church, located on Highway 51 north of Poynette, and its sister congregation, Poynette United Methodist Church.

By the United Methodist denomination's Book of Discipline, members of both the Inch and Poynette churches must vote to approve what would be tantamount to a consolidation - closing the Inch church permanently and transferring its members to Poynette United Methodist Church.

A decision is expected sometime in November. If the Inch church is closed, it will be done in the winter, in a "sad celebration" that will include prayer and hymns.

No worship services have been held in the Inch United Methodist Church since mid-June, when torrential rains sent water gushing into the basement.

Claire Robson of Poynette, a church trustee, said water in the basement prevented access to facilities such as the kitchen, fellowship hall and restroom. Even now, mold permeates the building.

Robson, who's been a member of Inch for all his 81 years, said church members were told that this winter's record-breaking snowfall and the June deluges resulted in a change in the water table beneath the building.

"We're in a bowl right here," Robson said, referring to the surrounding features (including Highway 51) that are higher than the church. "Every direction you look is uphill from here."

That's why the last of the floodwater drained out of the basement only about two weeks ago.

Robson said operation of two sump pumps, and men of the church moving the water with absorbent squeegees, didn't drain the basement. It only prevented encroaching groundwater from getting any deeper.

The Inch United Methodist Church has endured more than its share of catastrophes in recent years. In 1993, floods left water in the basement.

And, in 1999, the electric green cross over the front door - once a key landmark - ignited an electrical fire that severely damaged the front entrance and forced the church to be closed for several months of repairs.

But this summer's flooding was the last straw.

Some church members, according to Smith, saw worse flood damage while volunteering in Biloxi, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina.

But knowing that didn't change the fact that too-long exposure to the mold in the Inch church could be hazardous to worshippers' health.

The Inch church now has about 50 members. On a typical Sunday, about 18 used to attend worship.

Robson's wife, Natalie Robson, said church members explored every possible option for staying open.

They applied for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Association, to no avail.

The church's insurance wouldn't cover the flood damage because the water was clear, not mixed with sewage.

And, Natalie Robson said, the church could have used the money it had on hand to make repairs, but that would have left nothing for day-to-day operations.

Even a loan from the denomination was considered, but "there aren't enough of us to pay it back," she said. "We did not give up without a fight."

Natalie Robson has started packing up the church's memorabilia and historic artifacts.

Smith said one longtime member came into the church briefly to take pictures - not of the church's interior, but of the view out the window that she saw from the pew she occupied every Sunday.

If the church closes its doors permanently, Claire Robson said, people who gave furnishings to the church (such as the pulpit, donated in memory of Sharon Waugh) will have the first opportunity to claim the items they donated.

What will happen to the building is uncertain. One possibility is that some other entity might acquire it and move it to a different site.

But one vital church facility - the cemetery, established along with the congregation in 1875 - will be cared for, Claire Robson said. The town of Dekorra already takes care of mowing in the cemetery, and church members see to the maintenance of gravestones.

Claire Robson was baptized and confirmed in the church, and would have been married in the church had it not been for a 1947 snowstorm that necessitated moving the ceremony to his parents' home.

And, when the time comes, he and Natalie will be buried in the cemetery, where they already have a plot and a gravestone.

Still, he said, it's not a building that makes a church, but the people.

That's why, if the time comes to close the Inch church, Robson thinks one particular hymn might provide an appropriate benediction: "I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together."

 

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