In Search of Growth
“It’s sort of like zucchini farming,” says the Rev. Amber Carswell, rector of Christ Church in Warwick, New York. “One day you’re admiring a vine, and the next you’re confronted with an enormous, beautiful crop—that’s church growth. … We’re standing here wondering what we’re going to do with this giant zucchini.”
And a rapid and plenteous harvest it has been. Since 2021, Christ Church has seen a 210 percent increase in average Sunday attendance. “The church holds about 100 folks if you’re trying—80 feels very full,” she says. The 164 communicants spread across Sunday mornings at Christ Church give parishioners new energy.
“Warwick is picture perfect,” Carswell says. Nestled on the edge of the bucolic Hudson Valley, the village of Warwick is replete with apple orchards and berry farms. Yet Christ Church is far from the reserved village church depicted by Norman Rockwell. “We have noisy kids in the pew, and folks hanging around the church, and Bible studies, and community breakfasts,” Carswell says. “Really, this is a place that knows how to throw a party.”
But this party spirit did not arise from a programmatic agenda. “We only have two full-time staff—one of them is me, and the other our parish administrator. Neither do we possess endless resources,” Carswell says. Rather, Christ Church’s growth has come by keeping it simple. “Parties happen, and they’re great parties, because our people like parties. It’s all about church being church—a classical idea of church.”
In the last four years, the community of Christ Church has discerned what it means to take the act of gathering seriously. “We are not corporate,” she says. “There are entire corporations that can exist in an online setting—the pandemic taught us this.”
Instead, Christ Church is formed by the physicality of Christ’s incarnation. “We really believe in and value what it means to be a worship community in person,” Carswell says. “One of the worst lies to come out of the pandemic is that Zoom worship is an equally suitable alternative to community worship—this is not true. Zoom merely draws on the affection people already have for one another. There is no inroad for human connection.
“To be interested in the full human community starts with your neighbor. Church is one of the last places where you are sitting next to someone who, only God knows what they believe, politically or doctrinally. Church is one of the last places where you are going to run into folks you don’t choose to. That’s beautiful.”
Christ Church acts accordingly. The parish is nearing the completion of a campus restoration. “Matter matters … buildings matter,” Carswell says. “What does it mean to be in a place that has been prayed in since 1866? In 100 years, we hope people will look back and say, ‘You made this thing possible.’ It’s a gift.”
Such gifts do not come easily, but rather are the fruit of discipline and strong theological commitments. “Our money is where our mouth is. We could have put this money towards staffing,” Carswell says. “But instead we’ve put it towards the building. We have erred on the physical reality of our space—on the principle of incarnation.”
This commitment to physicality runs throughout Christ Church. This is especially true in the administration of the sacraments. “In our part of the country, there is still a culture of private christening,” Carswell says.
“That is why I found myself the slightest bit unpopular when I insisted you have to come to the church to get baptized. If you do not want to come to church, why do you want to go through with this? If the church is a drive-through, the sacraments are meaningless.” Physicality is not an end, but rather an instrument of proclaiming the good news.
The people of Christ Church care about biblical engagement and the message of the sermon. “The message cannot merely be a repetition of what you heard on MSNBC last night,” Carswell says. “That stuff is fine, but we have a different call. … If you are coming to church today, you are a weirdo, because you are actually asking the questions of life.”
And at Christ Church, answering these questions is done together, seriously and deliberately. Carswell says: “Believing in good liturgy, good preaching, good teaching, and just being the church—through these simple things, lives are changed.”
Weston Curnow, a recent Kansas University graduate, is a student at Duke Divinity School, preparing for ordination in the Diocese of Kansas.
