Dear Brother Dalton,
You don’t know me. I’m a generation ahead of you. But I am an Elder in this denomination, and, as such, I decided to send this epistle to you for your encouragement and up-lifting.
I drove past your church a few days ago. My goodness, how things have changed. When I was in elementary school the street I lived on was only a short two block walk from the front door of your church. I cannot begin to tell you how troubled I was, upon driving through what used to be the old neighborhood, to discover the neighborhood is no longer there. Sweet Baby Jesus, what happened?
The street on which I lived is no longer there. It was named Blackmon Drive and it ran between North Decatur Road and Scott Blvd. Oh my goodness! It’s no longer there! Someone plowed up my old neighborhood and plopped a commercial development on top of it. Give me a minute to digest this. It’s traumatic. I’ll get back to you in the next paragraph.
Okay, here we are in the next paragraph. I’ve had a moment to reflect. I’ve brought myself face-to-face with the realization that times change, and, when they change, neighborhoods change. And when neighborhoods change …. Well you get the meaning of my reflection.
But, you know, some things should never change. And it is for that reason I write you. I doubt there are any members alive at your church who will remember this, but I do. My Daddy was a charter member of the church you now serve. And I remember the day he and a bunch of other lay persons gathered on a Saturday to pour the slab that would become the foundation of the first building of that complex you now serve.
They were good folks, my dad and his buddies. They’d served in World War II and they were now home to start a new life, full of promise and peace, and joy. So they went to church. In the case of your appointment they went to your church. And they built that first building for worship with their own hands.
When they built that new building, they did something out-of-the-ordinary. It is that out-of-the-ordinary gesture that causes me to write this episte. The out-of-the-ordinary gesture was this: They collected quarters ( yes, quarters as in 25 cent pieces ). And they collected enough quarters to make up $100. And then those veterans threw all $100 of quarters into the cement that was about to be poured to form the slab of the new church building. They did it, my Daddy said, “So that the church will never go broke.”
So, Brother Dalton, I know that your chuch faces challenges these days. The neighborhood is changing, as is evidenced by the plowing up of the house where I spent my formative years. I assume that, if your church is like the one I now serve and most churches of our denomination, your attendance is dwindling a bit and the meeting of the budget is challenging. When you’re discouraged, Brother Dalton, please remember my Daddy and his buddies and those quarters they threw into the foundation of that church.
As long as you don’t destroy the foundation of that church you’ll never go broke.
Can someone furnish the email address for Rev. Kent? He may be a friend I haven’t seen for many years. Thanks!
Posted by: Ken McEwen | March 16, 2018 at 01:50 PM