The Zoar Church

Today I journeyed back to a place of beginning.  It was up the road a couple of hours from here and nearly impossible to find on the narrow asphalt path that took me there.  Had it not been for a few direction signs, my sense of memory might have sent me in the wrong direction.  But, I made it without any real problem  to the Zoar Church which was one of three on the Stapleton Charge back in that day when the Bishop sent me to my first appointment as a preacher.  Trips to the past are always interesting because everything is affected by the shadows of memory and the real changes which have actually taken place.    

The dirt road that once took me to the Zoar Church is now paved.  The huge trees which hovered over it are gone and the dirt in which they stood is now covered with an asphalt parking lot.  The outside of the church looks not like something worn by the wear and tear of the years, but as pristine as a freshly painted portrait.   And, while the congregation has shrunk, the manicured cemetery has grown in its population.   I walked among the markers of old congregants and friends.  I remembered their stories.  I thanked God again for their prayers for me as their greenhorn preacher fresh out of preaching school and for the many ways they gave encouragment and support to me as one who was not nearly as far along the path of faith as they were.  

As I walked among old friends again, I felt humbled that they stood with me and took pride in being a church that had sent many a young preacher on his way in the journey of serving Christ and the church.  No matter where I went and no matter how much larger the congregation might have been, I never got out from under the power of their prayers and the unconditional love they gave to me.  I often have said that every preacher should have a Zoar Church in their past, and they should.