Died but not Disappeared

The big stone marker on the highway next to the historical marker simply read, "Rock Methodist Church, 1839."  Back in the overgrown distance was a towering wood frame building about to fall down.  The supporting porch posts stood precariously, the window shutters were hanging in pieces, and many of the glass windows were broken.  It was an abandoned Methodist Church waiting on a good strong wind.  The only durable and lasting looking thing on those sacred grounds which had an old brush arbor and cement eating tables was the cemetery.  Grave markers were both ancient and new.     

I had driven by always in too big a hurry to stop many times, but on this day the beckoning power of the old church was too great.  Some time was spent in quiet walking and reverent reflection.  This old church had called people in that community to bring its young to Jesus, to hear the fever pitched revival sermons, to kneel at its altar, and to come for moments of beginnings and endings.  To stand still with closed eyes and open ears brought forth the ancient noise of a people gathered in great numbers at its open and inviting doors.   

Rock Church is like many of the old abandoned Methodist churches seen from busy roadways.  They seem to be nothing more now than a library of unseen memories.  But, there is another truth.  Old Methodist churches, like churches of other brands, may die, but they do not disappear.  There are surely people living in that sparsely populated countryside as well as in the distant busy urban areas who are the spiritual descendants of those who found Jesus and faith at places like Rock Methodist Church,  A good wind may bring the building crashing to the ground one day, but that church like many others will still live in the lives of those who were told the stories of faith by ancestors who knelt at the unseen altar inside the ruins.  I wish I could have gone inside, knelt at the old worn out altar, and thanked God for the holy work which had been done and was continuing to be done because of this old church which had died, but would never disappear.  It was not to be so I spoke my prayers as I walked  to the car waiting to take me once again back out into a world running too fast to remember its past.