David S. Spence/The Gazette The Rev. Patrick Malone, pastor of Washington Grove United Methodist Church, speaks to the congregation.

The Rev. Patrick Malone knows his congregation is slowly shrinking.

"So, how are these two processes different?" he asks a dozen congregation members sitting in the basement of Washington Grove United Methodist Church.

He's referring to the process of changing a tire versus that of raising first-class, prize-winning tomatoes.

"[Planting tomatoes] is for your sustenance and [changing tires] is for survival," answers Barbara Leng of Washington Grove. "That's for an emergency."

"With the tomatoes, if you don't nurture it, the connection is going to die," says Ann Lees of Gaithersburg.

It's a Tuesday night. The walls of the basement vibrate a little, and muffled music comes from the chapel upstairs. A Seventh Day Adventist congregation, which rents the space every weekend, is holding a weeklong revival.

It's the second week of Malone's class, "Leadership from the heart: Learning to lead with love and skill."

The 11-week program is designed to teach people how to manage, build, and nurture a small group to help it grow.

Malone hopes the class will inspire his members to invest more time and effort into nurturing and encouraging the growth of their own congregation.

The goal for the class is to learn to channel people's talents or gifts into making the church a more visible part of its community, said Richard Cavicchi, a leadership student and church member from Washington Grove. "It's about, 'What gift can we bring to show this church to the town?'"

With a dwindling congregation of about 50 members, Malone is looking for new ways to make the church a more visible and active group in town -- to persuade people to walk into the church, and dissuade them from walking out, he said.

In the four years since Malone, 50, moved to Washington Grove and took over as pastor, attendance has only dropped slightly, he said.

With a budget of $130,000 a year, raised mostly from collections and rent from the Seventh Day Adventists, Malone said, "the financial tail is starting to wag the dog."

"It's too low for us to remain alive on that," he added. "If we don't evangelize and bring more people into faith and Christ, and then into this particular community of faith, in time it'll just die. Just natural attrition."

The number of members is not drastically below average, however, according to the Rev. Erik J. Alsgaard, director of news and information for the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Nationally, United Methodist churches average about 70 members, Alsgaard said. "We're a church of many small churches," in part because many churches started as meetings between neighbors when transportation was minimal.

Malone's task of making his church more visible is tougher than it might sound because, although the church is a noticeable structure nestled in the center of the 222-home hamlet, only about 20 percent of its members live there.

Though Malone is working to establish more connections with the town by providing activities, such as day care and a children's choir, he said the church needs to reach outside the town to attract more members.

The town's mission to ensure Washington Grove's small, historic and rustic character also leads to occasional head-butts with the church.

"This is a historic town whose mission is the status quo ... and sitting in the middle of it is a church that needs to grow. So in that sense that degree of difference in mission by those two groups is pretty stark," Malone said.

Most recently, the converging missions were highlighted by the Town Council's proposed zoning ordinance, which would restrict the amount of traffic allowed in and out of town and require churches, nonprofits and schools to get special permission before making developments.

The council made the proposal in response to the church's announcement in 2003 that it would open a school for up to 50 students within a few months.

While the idea soon evaporated, residents and council members worried that the church was "operating on the idea that they should be allowed to do virtually anything," said Mayor John Compton.

"And what we have attempted to do ... was to, without question, restrict the impact," Compton said. "Not what they do, but how they impact the town. And that's going to be restrictive, no matter how it turns out."

'Very separate

for a very long time'

In January, 1926, a newly formed and independent Washington Grove Church Inc., which later became a United Methodist Church, either purchased or was given a block of land on Maple Avenue, where it planned to build a parsonage.

The community was still a camp meeting site at the time, run by the Washington Grove Camp Meeting Association.

When the association's trustees got wind of the church's plans, they quickly put their foot down, claiming that any transfer of deed required their permission.

"The association had sole control over what you would call zoning, but they didn't call it zoning," said Philip K. Edwards, the town historian and author of two books on its history.

The association and the church eventually reached a compromise, which allowed the church to convene in the Assembly Hall, now known as McCathran Hall.

It was probably one of the very first disagreements between the church and the town government over zoning issues, and one that "has come up time and time again," said Edwards, who lived in Washington Grove from when he was born in 1944 until 1993.

The town in many ways was born out of camp meetings between members of Methodist congregations from the Washington area, who began riding the new Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from the city to the campsite in 1873.

By 1910, many people had settled in the Grove year 'round, and eventually formed their own congregation, which included members from Gaithersburg and surrounding communities.

But even in the Grove's early days, when about 95 percent of residents were Methodists, there was never a period when the town and the congregation were one and the same, Edwards said.

"There was a time when the association said 'Well, we've always had a religious committee to decide events for the year, to run the camp meetings, to make rules. And so this year lets let the congregation do it,'" he said. "And so they did for a little while, but then there were conflicts," which led church members to establish their independence in 1926.

"I think the relationship between this church and ... the town government has been very separate for a very long time, starting in 1910 when the congregation formed out of people who weren't just Washington Grovers," Edwards said, adding that there was friction between permanent residents and summer visitors. "And that friction is carried on with the congregation because it was never a thing of Washington Grove."

Little has changed since the beginning of the 20th century.

In the 49 years he spent in the Grove, Edwards, who was not a church member, says he never saw the church as an integral part of town.

"This church congregation, because it was from this sort of larger area, really was always less connected with the town," he said.

Malone and Compton, who has been mayor for six years, also agree that although the zoning issue is the first the two have disagreed on, the relationship between the church and the town is a distant one.

'It would be a terrible loss'

As a child growing up in Washington Grove, Sarah Leng remembers the freedom she felt when her parents gave her permission to walk home from church alone.

"It was nice after church, when my parents would stay and talk to people, we could just walk home," she said.

Sarah, 23, was baptized in Washington Grove United Methodist Church. Her older sister and younger brother were too.

She grew up going to Sunday school in the church basement and traveling with the vacation bible school. Now she's an assistant youth leader for the youth group, and travels with younger church members on retreats.

Sarah, who still lives in the Grove, said the church community is a second family.

"I was baptized there, and it feels very warm and comfortable to know that everyone knows me and I know everyone there," she said.

Her mother, Barbara Leng, says that's what's kept her family coming back for 26 years. "It's like a little family. We have our town family and our church family," she said with a laugh.

Richard Cavicchi, another Washington Grover, was a member of a larger church 14 years ago, when one Sunday he decided to try the one in town. He hasn't left since.

His three daughters, 8, 11 and 13 years old, all participate in many of the church's activities.

"Because it's a small church, they've really been nurtured inside the church," he said. "I think the church gives them a sense that they are part of a tradition, because of the town's heritage."

Cavicchi and the Lengs know that the size of their congregation is waning. All are confident, however, that it will bounce back.

"I've sat there before and looked around and been like, 'Wow, where are all the people?'" Sarah said. "But we've gone through our highs and lows, so I have faith that it'll grow back."

"It would be a terrible loss, but I'm optimistic that it won't close," Cavicchi said.

Church members aren't the only residents who say the church would be missed.

Although her family does not attend the church very often, Joli McCathran makes a contribution to the church every year specifically to help preserve and maintain the building.

"It doesn't have a huge presence, and I know people who started out going to the church in town but wanted bigger communities," said McCathran, whose husband's great-grandfather was the church's first minister. "But I personally think it would be a terrible loss to the community."

Barbara Leng said the church has faced situations like this before. About 26 years ago, when she first became a member, the Baltimore-Washington Conference sent a minister to close the Washington Grove church and open a new one in Gaithersburg, she said.

"And you know what? Our church just boomed. It just grew in leaps and bounds."