The Old Neighborhood

The old man parked his car on the side of the street and turned off the engine. He sat there for a moment scanning the surroundings like a private investigator searching for clues to something familiar that would stir his memories back to sharp detail. The street was the same and most of the houses hadn’t changed, though he was sure after 50 years none of the neighbors he used to know still lived there. They had moved on with their lives as he had so many years ago or moved on from this life as his wife had just last week.

It was her death that had prompted this pilgrimage back to their first church, their first parsonage. This was the place where their children had been born, a couple almost in the driveway before they could make it to the hospital. LeeAnna had always waited until the last minute, she didn’t like being in the hospital any longer than she had to. He smiled at the memory still so alive but it seemed wrong she wasn’t there to share it.

The parsonage wasn’t there either anymore, torn down and a newer house had been built. The place really wasn’t much more than a shack most of the years they lived there, held together mostly with duct tape and prayers. The church though was still there, if you could call it a church. It had been sold and now it was somebody’s home. It actually looked better than when it had been his church. Looked like somebody rich had restored it, landscaped the grounds and replaced all the windows and doors. Funny how all the years he had pastored there he never could get the church to come up with the money to fix the church up.

As he had driven through the old neighborhood he noticed that his church wasn’t the only one that was now closed, First Baptist was now a Community Center, the Methodist Church had been razed and replaced with an Auto Parts store, and the others were other businesses or city property. Where had all the churches gone? Where did any one go to church now? Maybe they didn’t, just like the people where he lived in retirement now. Once he and LeAnna retired they both began to look for a church near their new home but they couldn’t find one. Finally, they compromised by going to the big mega-church off the highway. But they never really enjoyed it, no one knew you and the music was too loud and you never saw the pastor only the visitation minister, whatever that was. When he was a Pastor it didn’t matter what time it was or what you were doing, if one of your member was in the hospital you visited them, not some visitation team leader! Even when LeeAnna was dying in the hospital their new pastor never came by. Then again why should he, they had never met him personally, not once. Church just wasn’t the same and it wasn’t better no matter what they thought. He had experienced a real church, with a real church family and "First Mega Church off the Highway" wasn’t it. Before long they quit going except on Sunday mornings and only when they really felt like they had to. It wasn’t the same, it just wasn’t really a church.

He wondered why no one had started another church in this neighborhood. There were plenty of people to invite. He wondered if anyone was trying to start new churches in any neighborhoods in America today. If someone didn’t start planting churches soon, the neighborhood church would no longer exist. Only the monstrosities they called churches, scattered miles apart near the interstate exits would exist and no one would really know what a real church was. A church like he and LeeAnna had pastored, loved and wept over.

He started the car wiped his eyes and one last time swept the street in search of the place he remembered but it no longer existed. This neighborhood with its new homes and displaced churches was soulless. Just like the old church building that was now a home, someone was in the building but no one was looking for God and if they did where could they find Him when all the churches were gone.