04255
May 28, 2004

More than a bad day

Pittsford pastor readies for Pentecost after fire destroys the church

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE – You might say that the Rev. Bruce Boak has had a bad week.

             A fire destroyed the historic sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsford, NY, just on the outskirts of Rochester.

            All that’s left now are the charred walls – braced up from the outside – while the debris inside gets sorted. Whatever looks remotely salvageable is being tossed into a nearby moving van.

             So far, the handbells, some candlesticks and a chalice are intact. And a five-foot wooden cross that is suspended above the communion table.

             “We’re hoping to get it all salvaged and repaired. The organ is toast. The stained glass windows? Some are whole, but melted. Others are damaged badly. We’re going to have them remolded and when the church is rebuilt, put them back,” says Boak, who is remarkably upbeat given the last 500 or so hours of his life.

             This week has brought a sequence of events that you couldn’t make up if you tried.

             The fire began when lightening struck the roof of  First Church’s sanctuary. The steeple there has towered over the town square for nigh onto 143 years. What are the odds?

             Although a fire hydrant sits on the sidewalk outside the sanctuary, it didn’t work. There wasn’t enough water to fight the fire, according Pittsford’s assistant fire chief Scott Joerger. Crews ran a small hand line from another hydrant up the street; but it took hooking up to a water supply nearly one-half-mile away to have sufficient water. Go figure.

             Fifteen-foot flames lapped at the church’s roof during the long night ahead, eventually collapsing it and gutting the old sanctuary.

             And then the search began for a place to worship.

            Last Sunday, over 700 members of First Church gathered in the auditorium of a local high school three days after their sanctuary burned. Communion was served in vessels donated by other churches in Genesee Valley Presbytery. Fifteen or 20 churches sent chalices and plates, which Boak says said “something powerful to our people about the interconnectedness of the Presbyterian Church.”

             A local Episcopal church sent a Pentecost banner to the auditorium to spruce up the worship space, showing hands rising out of flames.

             But then, the school got complaints (and a few pickets) – the separation of church and state, you see. “The (staff) couldn’t have been kinder,” he says, adding that First Church – wanting to be sensitive to those issues – has asked the school to bill them for the use of the space so that the arrangement is understood to be strictly business. But it was short-lived.

            Then the church approached a nearby Jewish synagogue, where the rabbi really wanted to help. But that was complicated, too. What is appropriate when two different traditions use the same sacred space? The possible inclusion of Christian symbols, and language, in a synagogue  is delicate. That’s still being sorted out.

The Rev. Bruce Boak (from left) talks with a reporter after a fire gutted First Church.
Photo by Linda Badger Becker.

            So, Boak and his flock are setting up shop in the auditorium of a Roman Catholic institution, Nazareth College, about one-half mile from the site of First Church. When the college is finished renovating the chapel inside the campus’ old Mother House, he thinks that is where the Presbyterians will nest for a little while.

             So three days before Pentecost, he’s planning worship. He’s looking for a red backdrop. And he’s hoping to put together a visual presentation, showing the intact chancel of Pittsford First Church so folks can feel at home. And a few shots of the charred sanctuary.

             And then, symbols of Pentecost. Fire, yes. Only this time, the good kind. The kind that illuminates rather than ruins.

             “The people are what are important,” he says. And this Pentecost, only the building at First Church is destroyed. There are 22 confirmands. And a couple of baptisms. There’s an inkling of energy from church members who are talking about  rethinking the congregation’s ministry. The Sunday School program got sidelined last week since the classrooms were still soggy with water. But he suspects that the usual summer program will go on, intergenerational classes.

             “It’s wonderful the way people pull together,” he says.

             There are a few heartbroken brides, wanting, of course, to marry in the sanctuary that matters most to them. But other churches are offering space, trying to shift calendars, adjust schedules, and console.

             Boak has had to do some very personal consoling this week, too. As if things weren’t hard enough.

             His father, the Rev. Gordon Boak, 88, was on his way to preach at a church in Mingo Creek, near Washington, PA, when he collapsed. Shortly afterward, he under went a valve replacement and three bypasses – so his son hurried from New York to Pennsylvania. To care for his father. To make arrangements for his mother.

             He says that his wife, Martha, herself the daughter of Presbyterian minister, has been incredible through it all.

Since the roof collapsed, First Church's old sanctuary sits exposed to the sky.
Photo by Linda Badger Becker.

             When lightening hit the roof, the church wasn’t empty. The associate pastor, The Rev. Carrie Mitchell, the entire choir and the congregation’s cadre of Stephens Ministers made it out safe and sound. Despite the disaster that is the inside of old First Church, what worried most worshippers was salvaging what was handmade, needlepoint cushions, all stacked in the narthex, and bookmarks for Bibles and hymnals. Boak says that, amazingly, much of it was spared.

             Already folks have heard from a congregation in Mozambique, where a First Church work group built a church from the ground up. Now, the roles are reversed.

             After Pentecost, Boak is on vacation. He’s headed where he always goes, Avalon Island in New Jersey. “It’ll get a little bit easier for me this next week,” he says. He’s gone there for years with Martha. They stay in a manse and he preaches in a little white-frame church on Sunday mornings.

             But that doesn’t sound like work. Especially now. “It’s only on Sunday,” he says.