Traveling the east coast of the US, one encounters numerous old buildings. Many of these are nearly 300 years old, dating back to the earliest colonial settlements in North America. What I found fascinating was that many of these earliest buildings were churches. In fact, when communities were founded, it was the church that was the first building to be constructed.
The church served such an important purpose to the community that it was built before any other type of building. Our society today doesn’t think that way. We still build churches, but usually the church comes after the community is well established. And many of those old churches have been repurposed for secular uses. I think we need to recapture the importance of the church. We need to see it the way our ancestors saw it, as a place for relationships between our neighbors and ourselves. And a place for relationship between ourselves and God.