Church of the Ascension to be converted to senior housing

Faced with the burden of caring for its aging building, a shrinking downtown Episcopal church is relocating to another parish in the city, while its longtime home on Linwood Avenue will be converted into a senior housing project by the operator of Canterbury Woods.

The Church of the Ascension at 16 Linwood Ave. at the corner of North Street will move three miles north to the campus of the Church of the Good Shepherd at 96 Jewett Parkway. It also will rename itself the Church of the Ascension at Good Shepherd, according to a press release and posting on its website.

When caring for a building limits the energy a congregation has for ministry, its time for a change, the church posted on its website. The church is not a building. Any church, Ascension included, is really a group of people in close relationship with God and one another.

Officials stressed, though, that the two churches are not merging. The congregations have maintained a covenant relationship since 2011, the website continued, so sharing space made perfect sense to both churches when Ascension began looking for a new base. However, Ascension will maintain its own congregation and its 4:30 p.m. Sunday service and monthly Pet Food Pantry.

The Church of the Ascension is not closing, the website said. Rather, it is evolving, adapting to the 21st century reality of how to be the church.

Like many parishes, Ascension has been shrinking as the demographics around it changed. The parish had 338 active members in 1975, but membership plunged to just 39 in 2013, according to the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York.

That created urgent financial pressures that threatened the churchs future. Over the past three years alone, the church has spent nearly $80,000 on building maintenance. If it had not taken these steps, it would have closed within six months, said Laurie Wozniak, spokeswoman for the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York.

The congregation of the Church of the Ascension is committed to mission work. When the cost of maintaining the building on North Street began to negatively affect that work, the decision to move was made prayerfully and with much deliberation, said the Rev. Cathy Dempesy-Sims, Ascensions priest.

The congregation and I believe that in doing so, we are being good stewards of both our money and the building, which will go on to serve the surrounding community in new ways.

The 164-year-old churchs historic building will now be re-purposed for senior housing by Episcopal Church Home & Affiliates, which runs the high-end continuing care community Canterbury Woods in Amherst and is constructing a similar but smaller facility at the former Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital site.

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Church of the Ascension to be converted to senior housing