Battle With a Bulldozer

It always makes me sad to see a church closing, or biting the dust.  In a nearby town an old brick church on a street corner is losing a battle with a bulldozer.  Every time the front end shovel raises in the air, another part of the wall comes tumbling down.  It is such a sad sight.  Once it was a proud and prominent Primitive Baptist Church.  And then more recently it became a church with one of those wordy contemporary sounding names.  It took more than one breath to say its whole name.  But, it was still a church where people praised God in worship and offered prayers toward heaven.

 

Soon it will just be a bare corner and not long afterwards, something else will likely spring from the ground and people will forget that a church once graced that place.  I can intellectually understand how such a thing happens.  Everything, including our institutions, are in a constant state of change.  But, I keep thinking, not so much of the building as the people from the past who worshipped there. They no doubt had great expectations for their church.  They prayed and believed it would have an unending impact on the community around them.  They knew the blessings of God and were filled with hope for days to come.  They never considered that one day a bulldozer would come.

 

Despite all those holy expectations, the day of demise has come.  Somehow though, what has transpired there will not be forgotten by the God who was worshipped through the decades. It would not be a surprise if some of the prayers prayed in that place are still being remembered and used as building blocks for Kingdom enterprises.  Ministry done in the name of Jesus has a way of reaching into distant places and even though great spans of time in ways no one could ever imagine.  Maybe the building is gone, but count me as one who continues to believe that seed planted for the Kingdom of God will grow a harvest long after anyone goes looking for it.