To: Those who have a connection to A Place Apart
From: Paul Grout, Director/Oblate
Those of us connected to A Place Apart have a deep love and respect for the Church. The
Church has nurtured us, it has in so many ways brought us to where we are.
We are coming to believe that the Church that we have known will not continue. The decline of
the North American Church will accelerate through the next five years. The Church as it most
commonly exists today is not sustainable economically or spiritually.
The denomination, districts, and local churches are typically depending upon people over sixty to
provide up to ninety percent of annual budgets.
The building centered, program centered, pastor centered church is collapsing under a weight
that it can no longer sustain. Increasing percentages of church members under fifty are rushing
in and out on Sunday mornings. The spiritual, administrative, and physical demands of
maintaining the church are progressively falling on people over fifty.
Seeking to revive what has been or bring renewal to what now exists will at best only prolong what
is, and unconsciously create a barrier of resistance to what could be.
it’s leaders have failed. The Spirit is calling forth something new and ancient, something deeper
and wider and richer than what has been known. Many of you have been feeling this calling forth,
but few of us have understood how to even begin responding. There is a growing almost
universal sense of loss and emptiness that many are now seeing a Spirit generated prelude to
the emergence of new life.
A Place Apart and so many similar groups that are emerging throughout the country are seeking
to give voice to what has happened and prepare the soil for planting the new and ancient garden.
The church will be reborn in a new form through the rebirth of individuals; body, spirit and mind
into a new realm of consciousness and a new realm of being. This realm was introduced and
empowered by Jesus Christ.
A Place Apart is not about bringing forth the next new thing. We do not have a program to save
the church. We are seeking to reconnect our lives to God, to the Earth, to each other, to
ourselves.
A Place Apart is about beginning to step apart from the life that is no longer serving us or others.
It is about stepping apart to become a part of the life that God daily makes available to us.
If you and some within your church are ready to begin exploring with us what a new life within the
Spirit might involve, we encourage you to contact us.
A Place Apart
Paul Grout
(802) 387-4177
