Church For Sale

One of the saddest experiences of traveling through small-town America is the economic devastation one sees. I was in one little town in the West (I'll keep its identity secret) and after unloading the bike and checking in I did my normal walk-about.

I've been in a lot of small towns off the beaten track and seen lots of economic pain, but this town certainly took the prize. On virtually every street there were numerous buildings, houses, and businesses for sale: a dance studio, a bakery, a dozen small retail shops, a couple of motels, a car dealership (for sale by owner), even a church! And the bad news is that I discovered one church that had already been sold and was being turned into low-end apartments - Yikes! You know it is really bad, both economically and spiritually, when churches (plural) start folding. Banks don't want to foreclose, members do everything they can to keep the doors open, and in a town where the only thriving businesses were bars and casinos, you know there is a problem.

Not that I have an issue with bars and casinos - this is a free country after all, and goodness knows I have stepped inside more than a few bars in my life. Casinos not so much ... watching all that money go back and forth positively freaks me out. We were in Las Vegas once and my wife won $1.25 (yes, that's right, one dollar and twenty-five cents) on a nickel slot and I immediately started shouting "CASH OUT!!!!"

But my admittedly anecdotal experience is that usually you find a balance between bars/gambling halls and banks/churches. But not in this place: the whole town was for sale. Even the job training center was shuttered up and on the market! That tells you how bad things are in this town.

When I see businesses shuttered up I tend to stand and gaze at them for awhile, trying to imagine the joy and hope of the owners when the business first opened. I imagine the work that went into planning and stocking the shelves, the meetings with bankers ... I see the "Grand Opening" and I imagine the first heady days as a long-held dream was finally realized.

Then my heart cries as in my minds eye I see month after month of downturn until finally the coffers are empty and the owner has to shutter the door and walk away, downcast. How horrible it is to have your dream morph into a nightmare.

All of this was going through my head as I stood and gazed at the "For Sale" sign on the church pictured here. But then something curious happened ...

It was six o'clock and from some other part of that town I heard ... church bells. How long had those bells tolled the hours in this town, reminding folks - reminding me - of the contstant movement of time? The bells rang and my heart lifted, for they reminded me that "to eveything there is a season, and a time to every matter under heaven," and that though it was true that the time for this place of the worship of heaven was finished, Heaven itself was still a living reality.