The day I visited Lucille to hear the story of how her church had closed, she started talking before I could even turn on my voice recorder. “We don’t know what all happened at the end,” she said. “We were never told where the stuff in the church went to—the pews and cross and things. Maybe they’re still in the building!” The not knowing had kept Lucille in a state of suspended grief—something like the way parents feel when they cannot locate the bodies of dead children. She refused to drive the main street through her hometown, where the church now stands empty. “I can’t go back there,” she said.
Some churches meet in coffee shops; some make use of a “church in a box” kit they set up in school auditoriums. In most settings, however, people of faith still cling fondly, even fiercely, to the dedicated physical space that links them to their faith tradition. A church building—with its windows depicting biblical scenes, its 1950s Sunday school posters, and even the silver set once used for the women’s guild tea—may prompt visceral responses in the hearts of the faithful.
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