In yesterday's Courier-Journal, Peter Smith wrote in his Faith and Works article about Portland Avenue Presbyterian Church relocating to the former Kroger grocery store building next to their old church structure. Apparently a couple of years ago their historic sanctuary burned down, forcing their hand. They've worshipped in a former Catholic church since, until now when they're ready to commence worship in their new space. Besides worship and classroom space, they'll also have room for community meetings, a food bank, a clothing bank, etc. Somehow out of ashes a great thing will happen for the Portland community. It'll be different than what folks are used to at Portland Avenue Pres, but it sounds like it will be beautiful.
Our church at Drennon isn't located in a grocery, although there used to be one across the creek in the historic Drennon Springs area, as well as several other businesses, homes, a public school, three different hotels and a U.S. military institute. Nowadays we still have lots of homes, but no more businesses right nearby, although the old grocery building is still there and you can peek in the windows. Our church building is a beautiful, traditional, old-fashioned structure, built in 1852 and substantially renovated and restructured in the 1920s when Port Royal Christian shuttered and sent its bell tower and stained glass windows down the hill. We have the same issues most older church buildings have, with constant talk of repairs, renovations, new coats of paint, needs for better restroom facilities, handicapped access, etc. Our folks love our church building and take pride in its beauty and its use. Although we're small we're thriving and lively, and the people can't be beat.
I mention our church and Portland Avenue Pres because my family has spent a lot of time in another "grocery church" the past few months: Southeast Christian Oldham Campus. We've been going there pretty often on Sunday nights for two reasons: to fortify me as a pastor who can't really preach to himself, and to give our son JR access to a youth group that might have some familiar faces from the area where he lives in Oldham County. The idea of attending a church where the sermon is piped in by satellite from their larger campus was very, very strange at first, and in fact it still is at times (my wife Harriet asked me tonight if Kyle Idleman was there or just a projection on the screen, because it looks eerily like he's there with us in the room). What we've found, though, is not only fulfillment of the two reasons we came, but also connections to friends we didn't know we'd find there.
One of Harriet's close childhood friends is a member there, and has been taking her granddaughter there to get her into a good youth group after moving here from Canada. A boy who Harriet and I have coached in baseball alongside JR just joined at Southeast, and I will baptize him there next month. We're hoping to make a family connection there with the new study based on The Story, the new Bible novelization that's taking many churches by storm. And I've been able to meet their pastor, Kurt Sauder, who began his life in ministry at a small country church like Drennon in Indiana. Sometimes God presents us with more bountiful blessings than we could expect or certainly deserve.
All of this in a grocery. Southeast Oldham meets in the old Winn-Dixie building that sat vacant in Crestwood for so long. I think it's fantastic when an older abandoned building can be repurposed, especially for something as great as a new church. When I was taking my ministry preparation courses with the Londen Institute for Evangelism, we visited at church in Cleveland, Momentum I think was its name, that met in a Tinseltown movie theater. They were allowed to convert the lobby into their foyer each Sunday, then use the first theater inside the door as their sanctuary. They obviously had an incredible screen for their videos and PowerPoint slides.
I went back home to our church at the time, one which was also from the megachurch model, and told the leadership what I found. I begged them, as they were branching out in expansion, to give LaGrange a shot as their next location, maybe even in the Great Escape Oldham theater. I told them that if they didn't, probably Southeast would come in any put their footprint all over Oldham County. Well, they did (Southeast, that is), and I'm so glad they did. They're already impacting me and my family, and I hope my experiences there help me be a better pastor at Drennon. Our people there deserve the best.
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