The first Sunday of Advent was supposed to be an ending for Christ Church Episcopal.

As one of the nine churches on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that is slated for closure by the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota on Nov. 30, the little church at Red Shirt Table might have been holding the final service in its 99-year-old history tomorrow.

Instead, the church and its pastor plan to celebrate the beginning of Advent, not only as the start of the four-week season that anticipates the coming of Christ into the world on Christmas Eve, but also as a new chapter in its own story.

"We're not going to call it the last service. It'll be a new chapter for us," said the Rev. Robert Two Bulls, pastor of the small, isolated Native American congregation that is located five miles outside of Red Shirt Table.

Bishop Creighton Robertson, the first Native American bishop of this diocese, announced in August that, after much prayer and discernment, he was forced to close nine churches and move two others to station status because of declining attendance and failing finances. Robertson called it a difficult decision that was a long time in coming, but one that was necessary to ensure the future of ministry on the Pine Ridge Episcopal Mission. The parishes have responded by seeking an injunction in tribal court to stop the closures. That legal action is still pending.

Several of the churches the diocese plans to close are located closer to other Episcopal parishes that will remain open. But Christ Church is about 50 miles from Holy Cross Church in Pine Ridge, which is the next closest Episcopal church. In a place where people are poor and transportation costs are high, that's a huge burden to bear, Two Bulls said.

"The geography of it isn't fair. Our church is so far away. That's why we're really putting up a fight," he said.

Two Bulls talks about that fight as he looks across the church's cemetery, filled with rough wooden crosses and simple stone markers, toward the buttes and bluffs of Blind Man Table.

Two Bulls' sister, Noreen, is buried in that cemetery. More than 40 years after her death, the story of her burial is still painfully fresh in her brother's mind.

Two Bulls remembers the grief it caused his father when an Episcopal priest in Rapid City refused to perform funeral rites for his daughter. Family lore says the priest asked the elder Two Bulls, "Why do you blacken the doors of our church?"

That refusal crushed Two Bulls, a baptized Episcopalian who was born in a tipi on Christmas Day and who helped build the first log cabin Christ Church back in 1909.

Two Bulls vowed that day that if he ever became a clergyman, he would never turn away anyone seeking spiritual solace from the Episcopal Church he loves.

That vow is why he's still preaching at the little white frame church at the end of a rutted road a mile from his home, despite the fact that he is retired from the Diocese of Utah and is not canonically approved to serve in the Diocese of South Dakota by Bishop Robertson.

"I'm not going to refuse no one," Two Bulls said of the people who still come to Christ Church seeking the church's blessings for baptisms, weddings and burials. "The people want communion, they want baptism and I feel an obligation to provide it."

By most standards, average attendance at Christ Church's once-a-month worship service is spotty and small, but Two Bulls argues that regular Sunday attendance is not a good barometer of the vitality of a Native American Episcopal congregation.

Unlike many Episcopalian churches, this one does not have manicured lawns, beautiful stained glass windows, wealthy people in the pews - or even indoor plumbing. A propane stove is the only source of heat and the ceiling light fixtures are a string of utility lights on a bright yellow cord. As one member puts it, "Our members are not doctors and lawyers."

But its Native members think of Christ Church as their spiritual home, even if they don't attend often. Long after they move far away, they still come back for Christmas and Easter, and for significant events such as marriages and deaths.

"We come back to Christ Church because that's where we belong. We're more comfortable there. We're happy there," he said.

Christ Church is expecting a big crowd, many of them relatives from the large, extended Two Bulls clan, for church services tomorrow.

As usual, they will share communion at Holy Eucharist during worship services. Afterward, they will share it again in the form of a potluck meal served in the tiny guild hall next door to the old church.

And they will do it again on Christmas and, God willing, next Easter, too.

"You betcha. We're planning a Christmas program. We're going to have a big crowd there. And we'll celebrate Easter here, too," Two Bulls said.

They don't seem too worried about anyone from the diocese showing up to padlock the church doors.

"We never did have a bishop come visit, so why should we be worried now?" Two Bulls asks.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com