ENFIELD — Canaan resident Kate Guthrie was re-baptized earlier this month in the former Enfield United Methodist Church on Route 4.

Guthrie, 48, stood reverently at the front of the church as Paul Guest, the pastor, guided her and the congregation through the call-and-response of Baptismal Covenant I and anointed her forehead with holy water.

She celebrated her rebirth as a Christian as members of the Enfield and Canaan United Methodist churches celebrated their first day as the newly formed Mascoma United Methodist Church.

The merger was described by congregation members as both a marriage and a birthday, and culminated in a moment of jubilation when the united congregation of about 25 joined hands around the pews and sang “Happy Birthday.”

The merger solidifies a longtime relationship between the two congregations. With it, the congregation hopes to find stability and set the stage for growth.

The decision to merge had “long been discussed,” said Guest, who has served both congregations since 2016, and led the June 1 celebratory service.

There were practical reasons for the merger, Guest said. Consolidating into a single church is expected to reduce administrative roles by half and a unified congregation contributes to a focused mission, reducing the risk of working at cross-purposes.

Additionally, the merger enables Mascoma United Methodist Church to sell or repurpose the Canaan United Methodist Church property on Route 4 without activating a trust clause, which would otherwise revert property to the New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The merger was approved by active members of the congregation in an anonymous vote during a Special Charge Conference on April 27 of this year. Among the Canaan members, 14 voted in favor and one opposed. Among the Enfield members, 16 supported the decision and four were opposed.

Kate’s husband, Jeff Guthrie, 36, experienced the churches’ close ties firsthand. He began attending the Enfield church as a child and switched to the Canaan church when his grandfather moved towns.

Guthrie said he “doesn’t remember a time when the two churches weren’t linked.” He noted that during his lifetime the two churches’ youth groups have always been joined.

The two congregations have shared a pastor since the early 1800s, following a tradition within the United Methodists in which pastors –– informally referred to as ‘circuit riders’ –– served multiple congregations, leaving management of the churches to the congregants. The Enfield and Canaan churches had separate pastors for a brief time in the early 1900s.

Due to the effort of Guest’s predecessor, Peter Parent, to unite the congregations –– as well as the unification of the towns’ school system in 1963 –– the two congregations gradually blended.

Still, a previous effort to merge in 2001, failed to achieve the required two-thirds majority in a vote held by the active members of each town’s congregation.

Guest said it was “hard to put a finger on” the differences between the two congregations, but he said the division largely stemmed from the historical enmity that existed between the towns when each had its own high school.

Guest noted that while both congregations shared a laid-back spirit, Enfield featured a casual pickup choir open to all and a more flexible service format. In contrast, Canaan maintained a professional choir and followed a more structured service schedule.

The congregations began worshiping together during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They continued joint worship after in-person services resumed.

During the winter months, the two congregations have recently alternated between the Canaan United Methodist Church and the Enfield United Methodist Church, which they now call home. The Enfield church was chosen as their winter location because of its larger size, lesser need for repairs and related lower maintenance cost. It’s also the location of the food pantry and next door to the Methodist Thrift Shop.

At present, no decisions have been made about the fate of the Canaan United Methodist Church or its parsonage. Guest noted the parsonage will likely be sold, adding there has been some talk of repurposing the church as a community center or low-income housing. The fate of the two buildings likely will not be decided until the fall.

In recent years, summer services from June through August have been held in the Wayside Chapel on US Route 4 in Canaan, across from Mascoma Valley Regional High School.

For Jean Ricard, 90, a lifelong resident of Canaan and the primary caretaker of the Wayside Chapel, the community within the church is home but the place also is important. She wishes they worshiped more frequently at the Wayside Chapel.

The one-room chapel was originally built in the 1880s as a dance hall before it was converted into a chapel in 1896 and moved twice before settling in its current location at the intersection of US Route 4 and Blackwater Road.

Though the chapel has heat, the decision to worship there only in the summer was determined by the lack of running water and indoor toilet facilities.

Ricard described the chapel as deeply intertwined with her life. Ricard’s family farm, now owned by her nephew, is up the hill on Jones Hill Road and was visible from the chapel before the trees grew too tall.

“Well, it means a lot,” she said, “It’s been my whole life, really. I went to Sunday school there. I’m still going.”

Ricard voted in favor of the merger, citing dwindling attendance and the two congregations’ need for one another. In the 1980s, the Enfield and Canaan congregations each had 80 to 90 members. Before services merged in 2020, the Canaan church had roughly 25 active members and Enfield had around 35.

The Mascoma Valley congregations aren’t alone in seeing attendance dwindle. The Christian population in the U.S. steadily declined from 2007 to 2019, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study. During that period, the percentage of Americans who identified as Christian dropped from 78% to 62%. In recent years, this trend has slowed and numbers appear to have leveled.

When asked about their hopes for the future of their church, congregants stated growth, remarking on the congregation’s aging population. The youngest attendee at Sunday’s service was 32.

Jeff Guthrie noted that many from his generation do not bring their children to church, attributing this in part to the Catholic Church scandals and the negative portrayals of religion in mainstream and social media.

He called the merger “long overdue.”

Emmie Foster can be reached at emmie.e.foster@gmail.com.