This Church is Closed

This past Sunday I attended the closing ceremony of a church.  It doesn't really sound like a big deal when I say that.  I look around and there are churches on nearly every corner.  I'm sure churches close all the time.   But this church, Sharon United Methodist church, was established in 1873.

In attendance was a group of about a dozen from my current church and one couple from the disbanding Sharon church.  The reason they were disbanding was because they no longer had an active membership that was able to sustain the church.  I'm lead to believe there were fewer than ten members still around.

The building itself was also from the 1870's and sitting inside the old sanctuary I observed a lot of details that showed the work and love that people had put into this place.

But the significance of the closing of this church was not the history of the building itself.  It's what that building. . . what that church. . . did for the community when it was active.  For more than 100 years people came from surrounding farms to worship at Sharon UMC.  People were married.  Babies were baptized. Families mourned the dead.  Communion was served and lives were changed in this sanctuary.

The fifteen or so of us in attendance sang a hymn and I looked at the old wood plank walls and ceiling.  I heard the floor creak as we stood.  After the hymn the pastor asked the couple, whom had obviously attended church at Sharon their whole lives, if they had any memories or thoughts they wanted to share.

The man spoke up and pointed to the corner, next to the pulpit.  He told us that's where the choir sat when he was a boy.  His grandfather was the choir director and his aunt played the piano.  He was still motioning toward the corner where an old piano was sitting.  As he told his story I could imagine the choir taking their place at the front of the sanctuary and the piano playing as people arrived on Sunday morning.

Next the woman spoke and told us that they were married in the sanctuary in the 1970's (She remembers when she was married, I just don't remember the specific date.  I didn't want you to think she had forgotten).  Knowing that this would be the last time in her church, she was emotional as she told us her memories.   She told us about bringing their children to be christened in the sanctuary and she motioned near the front of the church.

During the service the pastor used a common phrase, "If these walls could talk".  She was right.  With all the history and all the lives that have been touched in the 100 plus years of Sharon church it is sad to see the doors closed for the last time.  Standing in the parking lot, outside of the wooden structure, I thought back 100 years when rural farmers and their families would come together on Sunday morning and worship God.

When I was headed over to the service to close Sharon United Methodist on Sunday morning I didn't think it was a big deal but after the service I had a different understanding of the significance of this old rural church.