Ten years ago this month, the church I grew up in shuttered its doors and died.
It had been on life support for many years before, with hardly anyone left to pray for a miracle. But there was enough cash in reserves to keep the ventilators running unmercifully. The truth is, it hadn’t truly been itself for decades.
Some claimed it was a death of natural causes, but I could not disagree more. It was involuntary manslaughter.
Many would name names in search of a suspect–a pastor in the 90s or the megachurch down the road that siphoned its members. But that would be a mistake.
It was an idea that pulled the trigger, not a human.
The idea was this: People, that amorphous, generic mass we, of a religious bent, seek to “reach,” are more important than Jim, Sue, Sally and Bob–persons with names, faces, fingerprints and blood types.
And because of “the people,” namely, those not attending the church at the time, the idea said we should build something. Anything.
In the case of this particular victim, what was built was an actual building. Sometimes, though, the idea builds a following, an identity, a program or a system. The idea, taking the cue from a famous movie at the time, said, “If you build it, they will come.”
This congregation built it. People came, but not enough to replace the persons who left.
Debts piled up, collectors came calling, and a cavernous, utilitarian structure stood, almost empty, in the middle of the small town. It towered above the smaller, older church building that was in various stages of disrepair, the one that nurtured generations of believers in the way of Jesus.
Listen, I’ve spent a half-century in church. I have tens of thousands of clocked hours in Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, youth camp and revivals, not to mention two academic degrees from Christian institutions.
I don’t need anyone to teach me that “the church is not a building.” That is Christianity 101, and I get it.
And I know enough about decay (and have read Ecclesiastes) to know all the places persons have ever gathered to worship in will, in due time, no longer be here. Like all the people who occupied them, those buildings will eventually become dirt or be buried beneath it.
I also know all our institutions are dying. Some should remain dead while we collectively sigh, “Good riddance.” Others must be born again for our communal life to flourish.
But to dismiss the grief of a local church closure communicates that none of our sacred spaces matter. If those church buildings don’t matter, then neither do any of the other places we abandon them for in our search for God.
When I told someone about the grief and sadness I was experiencing at the death of that church, they dismissed my feelings. “There’s no need to be sad,” they said. “The Spirit left that place a long time ago. That’s what happens. God’s favor moves around to different places, and we must accept it.”
They pulled the old John 3:8 trick on me: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Maybe they were right. Who knows?
What I do know is what we usually mean when we say those things about churches is, “See! A lot of people are going to this one church, and fewer people are going to this other church. Therefore, look where God is at work!”
A more subtle version of the same sentiment is that people are experiencing God outside the walls of institutional churches. I cannot argue with either version of the sentiment.
But I know this: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8). And in that old building, now in a state of disrepair, as in other church buildings that will all crumble, that Word was proclaimed.
It fell on my ears and those of others who occupied the same space with me. When it did, we walked down a red carpet, past wooden pews, and chose to follow Jesus.
For a time, we shared this life of faith with each other. We often failed miserably at loving each other and our neighbors, those persons with real names, fingerprints and blood types. But sometimes, we succeeded extravagantly, and that is a grace I do not hold lightly.
Could that have happened anywhere? Of course it could have.
But it didn’t happen anywhere. It happened there. That is why losing it was a cause for sadness.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
