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Date: 7/20/2022
AGAWAM — Kenneth Blanchard worked in IT at Mass Mutual, but it wasn’t his true calling.
He “did a good job, got promotions and all that,” and rose through the corporate ranks to become assistant vice president. But all the while, he felt like a square peg in a round hole.
“I kind of put my true calling on hold,” he said.
So he did what many people do when they feel stuck in their careers, and went to graduate school.
In 2009, Blanchard received a master’s degree in applied theology from Elms College. In 2012 he received a quarter-time appointment to serve as the pastor for Agawam United Methodist Church. In 2013 he retired from Mass Mutual after 35 years, and in 2014 he picked up a second quarter-time pastorship at Christ Church United Methodist in Southwick.
On July 1, Blanchard retired from the pastorship. He calls it “Retirement 2.0.”
“It feels right. Combination of burnout and, I guess, personal issues and family concerns. Seemed like now’s the time. The [COVID-19] pandemic didn’t help, either,” he said.
For eight years, he preached a twin bill every Sunday, delivering his sermon first in Southwick before rushing down Route 57 to do it all over again in Agawam.
“And I thought, you know, this is an elderly congregation. They’re gonna want to sleep in. Nope. They’re old Yankees, old farmers. And they got up at the crack of dawn and were totally comfortable meeting at 9 o’clock, and that was great. I was able to get over to services for Agawam at 10:30 each and every week. It didn’t give me a lot of time after services in Southwick to spend time in fellowship, or coffee hour, or whatever, with folks. So that was kind of a bummer. But you know, it worked,” said Blanchard.
Blanchard says that 90 percent of the time, he delivered the same sermon in both Southwick and Agawam.
“I’m what you would call a manuscript preacher. Not that I can’t speak extemporaneously, but I prefer not to. So I would prepare my sermon usually a week in advance and know exactly what I was going to do and what I was going to speak on that following Sunday,” he said.
The Southwick congregation disbanded the same day he retired, ending a history that dated back to 1816. Blanchard said it was a difficult but ultimately unavoidable decision for a congregation that had rarely seen attendance above the single digits since the return to in-person services following the pandemic.
“People got old and realize they couldn’t do what they once could. Even though heart was willing and the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak,” said Blanchard.
“The writing was on the wall for some time in Southwick. We had taken a vote, I think it was last year, and decided to keep it open. But then, as time marched on, we realized that was probably not the correct vote. So we took a revote, and set July 1 as the closing date,” said Blanchard.
“That was a tearful Sunday because it was not only saying goodbye to me, my last time preaching there, but it was saying by the building that housed the church for so many years, 206 years. You know the roots, as you can well imagine, ran very deep. People came to that last service that I certainly never had met, but they had gotten married there 47 years ago. Or their kids were baptized here, or whatever the case might be. It was it was emotional, because even though the church is not a building — the church is the people — there’s a certain amount of memories attached to the real estate itself, to the building itself.”
Closures of churches are becoming increasingly common, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic. In 2020, 305 United Methodist churches closed nationwide because their congregations were no longer sustainable. The denomination has also been losing members another way: disaffiliation.
In 2019 the United Methodist Church’s General Conference clarified its stance on matters of human sexuality. Clergy are formally barred from consecrating, commissioning or ordaining “self-avowed” homosexuals. It also introduced a rare exception to its “trust clause,” which puts ownership of local church property in a trust for the denomination at large. Churches wishing to disaffiliate may do so until 2023 without forfeiting their property. This has led a handful of progressive churches, and several hundred conservative ones, to seek disaffiliation from the general conference, and become independent or ally with a different denomination.
Blanchard’s retirement “has nothing to do with” church politics or property rights, he said.
“I am grieved by it,” he said. “I think the Holy Spirit is grieved by it. I think it’s a shame that the United Methodist Church could become the dis-United Methodist Church.”
“And for me, getting back to the LGBTQ issue, you know, some people say, ‘it’s a sin, the Bible clearly says that it’s a sin.’ But I would rather be told by God that I preached bad theology than be told by God, ‘I gave you these people to love and you didn’t love them.’ So, for me, the whole issue comes down to inclusiveness and love. And I think that’s what Jesus was all about. That’s what God is all about. And to me, it’s that black and white.”
In his retirement, Blanchard is looking forward to church-hopping with his wife Meri, and is preparing for the New England Parkinson’s Ride, a 100-mile charity bicycle ride sponsored by the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Agawam’s congregation meets Sundays at 10:30 a.m. at 459 Mill St., Feeding Hills. A Spanish-language United Methodist congregation, La Restauracion, also meets at the Feeding Hills church, on Sundays at 6 p.m.