A Christmas Memory

I grew up in a small town where, for whatever reasons, my church became the center of my life. I have thought about it so often, and I think of the people, the Sunday school teachers, our pastor, my scoutmaster, most of whom are gone now. It was a community where we kids were accepted as we were, and I think that is really true, because even the kids who were picked on in school were treated lovingly at the church. One of my fondest memories there is of a Christmas Eve service when I was thirteen years old. The church may have had such services for years, but this was the first that I ever attended. What made it even more special was that my whole family attended, which indeed was a rare event. The church was packed, and it seemed as if everyone was happy and radiant. At the end of the service, we sang "Silent Night" as the lights were extinguished, and I remember seeing the faces of the senior and junior choir bathed in candlelight. It was a beautiful event, and is a very warm memory. Three months later, the church was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt. Members of the congregation fought over the judicatory's decision not to allow us to rebuild. Within a year, the congregation split, with two-thirds of the membership founding a new church. I remained with the original congregation, even though the rest of my friends went with the breakaway group. As a result, I learned a difficult lesson about human nature. I learned that church people are human beings who are imperfect, who bicker and gossip and take sides. Years later, after I had graduated from divinity school and was serving my own churches, I learned from the man who had been our pastor at the time that we could have rebuilt the church, if only members would have agreed to install an outreach ministry in the new building, since our church lot bordered what is now known as a transitional neighborhood. But the folks in power at the time refused. And some of the most obstinate were the very people who had nurtured the members of the youth group so lovingly. Members of my extended family now attend the church that broke away, and my home church, or what was left of it, merged with another congregation in town. A parking lot now occupies the space where a church had stood for one-hundred-fifty years, with no marker or anything to indicate that a house of worship had once stood there. I was the last in a long line of youth from that church who entered the Christian ministry, and I am the last who is still serving actively. The very real and hard lessons I learned about human nature since the fire have not dimmed the mental picture I retain of the beautiful candlelight service in that gorgeous edifice, when I felt as if we were all members of one family. Truth is, we were, and remain so. That, I think, is the heart of the Christmas message: God came to earth that we all might be one. Merry Christmas.