PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) On just another Sunday morning at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, the Rev. Sara Fischer preaches about the season of Advent, the coming of Jesus Christ and what this holiday season really means.

“People who’ve been around me a long time know that I’m always saying this or that season or day is my favorite,” she says with a small laugh. “But really, truly, I love Advent. This is a season of new beginnings, of expectation and preparation for something wonderful.”

She might as well be talking about her own church.

A year and a half ago, St. David’s was dying. Sunday services were held in a small side chapel for a crowd you could count on your fingers. The older members — the Little Old Ladies, as they call themselves — were trying out other parishes. The priest, a part-timer fast approaching mandatory retirement, was doing his best to hang on, fearful that if he left, the diocese would sell the building.

This isn’t, after all, a town that’s committed to churchgoing, or a time of unfettered peace and growth for the Episcopal Church.

Yet 18 months later, on just another Sunday, 60 parishioners listen to Fischer preach. It’s a mix of longtime members, grandparents and grandchildren and young newcomers.

After Fischer’s sermon, the congregation sings a song of rebirth and renewal. It could serve as a metaphor for this particular church at this particular moment, and maybe a lesson for other congregations struggling to survive in this spiritually fractious time:

“Signs of endings all around us, darkness, death and winter days,” they sing. “Give us hope and faith and gladness. Show us what there yet can be.”

How do you rebuild a sense of community? To find the answer, maybe you first need to understand how you lose it in the first place.

St. David’s dates to 1870, when a young Episcopal priest came west from Philadelphia with $1,000 to find a new flock. The current building went up in 1952 with baby boom-sized expectations: At nearly 13,000 square feet, it’s big enough to serve 300 families.

“The pews used to be full,” says Peggy Kelly, who began coming to St. David’s as a child in 1961, and now brings her grandchildren. “There were three services Sunday and things going on every night. The church was your second home.”

It wasn’t one specific thing that emptied the pews, longtime parishioners say, but rather a combination of old age, shifting demographics, frustration and controversies about the ordination of women and gays and a controversial rector or two.

“Once you lose a kind of critical mass, it becomes plain uncomfortable for new people,” says Jennie Brown, the church’s senior lay leader. “It’s not that we were cliquish or closed to newcomers, but at a certain point, people would walk in and wonder, `Where is everyone?”‘

Fischer, 50, watched as a not entirely uninterested observer from her house, 12 blocks away. She’d pass St. David’s on her morning walks, but worked at a different suburban parish and figured she would spend her career there, or leave for someplace much larger.

In June 2008, The Oregonian ran an article — the headline, “The Perishing Parish,” summed it up nicely — about St. David’s. The story nudged her to talk informally about her dreams for the church down the street. She sat down with the rector, the Rev. John Nesbitt, to ask about his plans.

Nesbitt came to St. David’s in 1991 and had been a steady caretaker — he’d even stopped taking a salary to save money. But at 71, he lacked the energy or even the basic good health needed to kick-start the congregation.

Nesbitt suggested Fischer serve as an informal consultant; together they organized two neighborhood meetings.

“We wanted to know what people wanted from the church,” Fischer said. “In a specific sense, we heard things like yoga and tutoring. In a general sense, what we got back was: community, community, community.”

Nesbitt retired in March. Diocesan leaders named Fischer to replace him a few weeks later, bypassing the usual lengthy process of interviewing potential rectors. As part of the deal, she submitted a one-page prospectus with two basic themes: She promised to develop strong ties between St. David’s and the surrounding neighborhood, and planned a wide variety of worship experiences.

“She has the vision and she has the energy,” says Sharon Rodgers, a member of the diocese’s standing committee, which helps oversee the 74 churches in the diocese. “That’s the combination it is going to take.”

A lively woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a seemingly perpetual grin, Fischer has made dozens of changes. She moved Sunday Mass back into the main sanctuary, hired a music director and revived the choir. She also started a Friday evening compline service, a contemplative, end-of-day service with origins stretching back to the sixth century.

She offered musicians room to work or teach in exchange for performances during worship. She also started a holiday craft fair and put the Little Old Ladies in charge.

“There’s a reason you come to church that’s not just the sermons on Sunday or the same rituals that you could get anywhere,” says Kelly, a longtime parishioner. “You want to feel God, and you want to be around people who feel the same thing.”

Fischer sees a parable for St. David’s in Jesus’ parable in the Gospel of Matthew: “We’re like the farmer scattering seeds,” she said, noting that some seeds will bear fruit, others might not. “You can’t just plant one and assume you’re done.”

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There are no guarantees that any of this will work.

Nationally, the Episcopal Church is riven by controversy over blessing same-sex unions and electing gay bishops. Diocesan leaders expect their churches to be self-sufficient, but they’re subsidizing a big chunk of St. David’s $110,000 budget this year as a temporary measure.

Increasing the number of worshippers and finding compatible outside groups to rent space is about more than fulfilling God’s will. It’s a financial imperative if the small congregation is to survive.

“A lot of people have heard the story about the guy in the flood who prays for help. People keep offering him assistance, but he says, `No, no, God is going to help me,”‘ Fischer said. “Well, finally he gets to heaven and he says, `God, where were you?’ So God says, `What do you want? I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter.’ We have to do the hard work ourselves.”

(Anna Griffin writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)