If you walk up to the front door of our church, Holy Communion Lutheran Church, you won’t see any signs saying “Welcome to this House of Worship.” Instead, there is this sign in big, red, insistent-looking letters: DO NOT ENTER – NO EXCEPTIONS? Sounds like a rather odd evangelistic effort, don’t you think? It’s as though we had decided to attract visitors by engaging in some weird sort of reverse psychology, (“And whatever you do, Phillip, you had better not eat anything off of the vegetable tray while we’re gone!”) hoping that by forbidding anybody to set foot in that sanctuary, we would end with a standing-room-only crowd on Sunday.
No, it’s nothing as complicated as that. We are forbidden from entering the sanctuary for the remainder of the summer because of extensive renovation work that is just underway on our sanctuary, the last step in a renovation project that has been underway for the last couple of years. They are repainting, re-plastering, re-carpeting, rewiring the lights – most of them absolute necessities (unless you like the idea plaster crashing down on worshippers as they sing “Nearer my God to Thee.”) But in a sanctuary as large as ours, those are all complicated enterprises, to say the least. And costly.
One decision that was made in order to save some money is for the congregation to completely vacate the sanctuary for the duration of the summer, so the workers’ scaffolding can remain erected throughout the duration. (Otherwise we would be paying thousands of dollars simply for the man hours it would take to tear down and re-erect those scaffolds.) This meant not only that we had to find a different place for summer worship, but we also had to clear the sanctuary of everything except the pews. (Even the grand piano had to go.) So last Sunday, an announcement was made at second service that right after the service was concluded, we needed as many people as possible to remain and help haul away hymnals and other stuff. And saints be praised, 95% of those present did not run off to brunch or to the comfort of their living rooms but rather stuck around to help. In addition to the hauling away, there was also the matter of tearing out the carpeting to make way for the news – and by doing this ourselves, we saved the church another $4000. (I say we did this “ourselves” but my involvement in the tearing out of carpeting was limited to some spirited cheerleading.) It was really cool to see young and old pitching in together, from little old ladies to burly middle school football players. It was almost like something out of one of those Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney “let’s put on a show!” movie musicals.
That’s one way that this project is a wonderful plus for our congregation – the way it has necessitated a lot of pitching in. Another positive is that it will help all of us come to a new and deeper appreciation for how beautiful and inspiring our sanctuary is. (There’s nothing like worshipping in a non- descript church basement for three months to drive home that point.) Absence usually makes the heart grow fonder, and I find myself already feeling new and deeper fondness for this gorgeous sanctuary – and ever-deepening gratitude to those who managed to build it during the throes of the Great Depression. If they could survive that, we can survive this.
pictured above: the Holy Communion sanctuary undergoes renovation.