I have been a member of the Westbrook Methodist church since 1942, and I was baptized there in 1930. Throughout the many years of my membership, I have been both active and inactive. For the past several years I have not attended this church because of the divisiveness of its ministers as well as many of the parishioners.
About four years ago the steadily diminishing body of Westbrook Methodists decided to sell the building. According to the Book of Discipline which governs the procedures conducted within the church, all members should be contacted to vote on the sale of the church. This procedure was not followed, and a small gathering decided the fate of a building erected in 1867. After the sale of this building, the ever-declining group of Methodists met in the Stephen W. Manchester Post No. 62 of the American Legion.
After a period of two years, the remaining Methodists left the Legion hall, and during the spring months of 2006 periodically met in the Westbrook Warren Congregational Church to discuss giving away the remaining church property, including the church memorials.
If the total assets of the church were combined, the monetary value would be very close to $1 million. On March 28, in a synagogue on Congress Street in Portland, a motion was approved to close the Westbrook Methodist Church. As a member, I, along with many other members, who presently do not meet as a Westbrook congregation, were not allowed to vote. This was a decision of Peter Weaver, the Methodist bishop of the New England area. Since we did not have an opportunity to vote, the Westbrook Methodist Church will no longer exist, and the bishop will take the church assets to be used for whatever the church hierarchy wishes. The procedure of the Book of Discipline is followed only when it is convenient.
My proposal to Bishop Weaver was to put the Westbrook Methodist Church money in a trust to be used solely for another Westbrook Methodist church at some time in the future when the opportunity might arise. In my letters to him, he has never responded to this proposal.
Even in their world of Christianity, the almighty dollar appears to be their first consideration.
Robert E. Barton
Westbrook
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