Where Have all the Churches Gone?

This last weekend I participated in a memorial service at Dundurn, Saskatchewan, including committal of the ashes of a friend who died last October – corona protocol finally allowing family and friends to gather for the occasion. This occasion also provided a long awaited opportunity for my wife and I to finally see some relatives in nearby SK towns. It seems as though a decade or two has elapsed.

Streets and highways seem busy, either under construction or simply bearing the load of weekenders. Fields beside the highways not so busy, some knolls still showing the bare earth of last May where the monster seeders did their thing, GPS distributed fertilizers useless. When there is no rain the grain cannot grow. Some alternate harvesting (green feed cutting) already underway. Something in the air, namely smoke from BC forest fires puts an eerie glow to the ever faithful sun.

This dry draughty atmosphere also comes with us into my wife’s hometown of Waldheim. Then a shock even bigger! This is no illusion; it is nothing in the air. It is bricks and mortar before our eyes.  A beautiful church, tastefully designed and constructed, stands empty. Located across the street from the high school and devoid of signage, I've been told that it was purchased by the town and will be remodeled to serve as an office facility.

The information is not new. We had already heard and read about this in church media (and amplified by social media of course). Nothing however had prepared me for this .... emptiness. The evolving history of this town seems not to need my grief – after all I just married one of their girls some fifty plus years ago! This was the place of my wife’s youthful adventures, the place of her baptism and of our wedding. It was a church which harbored a whole number of reputable local citizens. Only three blocks down and across what used to be the railroad track is another former church, this one now a restaurant. People drink coffee, tell tall tales and spread gossip in there now. Nobody grieves it either. The big church, the church they all attend, the church of the action, is at the other end of town, don't you know!

I am reminded of the day before. At the memorial service a friend of mine presented a tribute with a nice header “Where have all the Flowers Gone?” and then the footer obviously from that same Beatles song, “Gone to Graveyards Everyone.” 😌 That play on words at first blic seemed almost dismissive of the deceased, but now on further thought I’m drawn to it. The flowers, the memories, the tributes, the legacies, even the stories, where do they go? They go to graveyards. Graveyards are a place for memories, leftover tears, and even new resolve. I’m told that graveyards are very significant original sources for historians. So even if us Christians might say that the graveyard is but the repose for our bones while the soul goes to its eternal reward, the actual place of rest is a significant place. For example, the chosen final resting place for the ashes of our friend is at same gravesite where his wife was buried eighteen years ago. Someday the historians may access that information. It is data regardless of their own or anybody else’s theological orientation.

Back to my shocker, the empty building. Actually I have always been a critic of fancy church edifices. In my mind the church is not a building. The church is the people alive and fully operative wherever two or three (Matthew 18:19) are gathered in the name of God. My most satisfying years of pastoral ministry, ten years in Edmonton and six in Calgary, were years of sojourn, years of worship and fellowship in rented facilities, always claiming that the fullness of our identity was right there among us, never dependent upon a building to call our own. These were the years of growth, both numerically and personal spirituality for all concerned. Once the building was procured a malaise began to cast its pall.

My grief therefore is not the re-assignment of empty church buildings to more useful purpose. I like buildings, good buildings – planned and constructed and utilized to maximize usefulness with minimum environmental footprint. My grief is with what seems like a community tragedy, a faith tragedy if you will – the closing down of a church! There's a message there. When people in the church seem not to consider it worth their while to provide support for one another and for leaders and program maintenance to provide physical and spiritual food for all who would come, then I am sad. It may not mean that it is a mistake; doors closing may in fact lead to other doors opening. Nonetheless I am saddened that no one at this point has the enthusiasm, the clarity of vision, or the Calling to help a faith community be the faith community. I can think of a few scriptures that speak to this, one from the Old Testament and one from the New.  In Isaiah 6 is the prophet in the holy presence of God,

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

and then there is Jesus in Matthew 9:36,

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

The Presence of God in this world (in this universe?) is into a new day. Churches with nice architecture and splendid cathedrals are not the real church, and some of our preoccupation with buildings is because of spiritual neglect or hedonism – perhaps similar to the Baalism, as encountered by the people of God in the O.T.  I have recently posted several times about modern trends sucking the energy out of churches (Check out "Good-Lifers," May 10; "New Pentecostalism," May 24). My lament therefore is not for buildings closed. I only hope that this recent ‘sign of the times’ not be taken as another claim by those who can only think in terms of winners and losers or who's got the right or the wrong preacher. It is a clear invitation for all of us to experience the larger presence of God. Recent newscasts have reported not only misdemeanors but heinous crimes committed by the Church. Some of this has been a carry-over of early church history, reformation history, as well as the colonial movement into North and South America. None of us in our colonial denominations are without some shadowy blemishes.  1 Corinthians 10:12. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 

Where have all the churches gone? Maybe some of our history is quite accurately evident in the graveyards. Churches closing or remaining open are indeed a present manifestation of our history. And the future? God the Alpha and Omega, Yahweh, Allah, Creator was there then, is still, and will be forever – larger than any congregation, any denomination; larger even than the Christian faith as we understand it to this day. Yes! The new challenge (new opportunity) is to become acquainted with our next door neighbors who may hail from the same village you or I came from, or from halfway across the world.

At the very beginning of the church there was a group of bewildered eager disciples asking Jesus if maybe now the Kingdom would finally be ushered in. His answer?  

“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8).