Second in a series on the struggles of two small, rural churches.

Story 1: The end of White Marsh

Story 2: An 'agonizing' decision

Story 3: Hopes for revival

THERE ARE MANY threads in the shroud of White Marsh United Methodist Church, but its story ends the same no matter which one you follow.

Some threads are old, such as the 210 years of White Marsh's history, its ties to the founders of the Methodist Church and its tree-shaded walls of brick and window, now, always and forever linked to the hundreds of graves in the cemetery behind it.

Other threads are common to the present-day Northern Neck, such as the aging and dwindling of its native people, the lack of leaders, the dearth of children, the struggle to pay the bills and the difficulties of assimilating re-tirees now streaming into the peninsula.

Other threads involve the ways of modern church management, such as White Marsh's zeros and low numbers in column after column of annual statistics that raised the eyebrows of Methodist managers, the role of a new minister out of sync with a congregation twice his age and the series of difficult meetings that led to White Marsh's death as an active church.

Many of the threads are emotional, such as the guilt and shame felt by some members when they realized that a church they had loved but had not supported was about to die, the pall of quiet grief that has fallen over the church's neighborhood of Brookvale in Lancaster County and the shock felt by many members when they realized that losing the Methodist franchise meant losing the church building their ancestors had built and nearly everything in it, including communion silver stamped "1770."

Most of these threads were cut forever June 30 when a district superintendent, who had struggled for months with White Marsh's problems, conducted its final service.

The next day, the locks were changed and practically every old member was locked out.

The United Methodist Church is 8.4 million members strong. At its end, White Marsh United Methodist was the spiritual home of only 25 of them.