open the door and see all the people

I grew up in a couple of church buildings that were financed on the “build as we get it” plan. 


That may be why I have always been attracted to the unadorned walls of Quaker meeting houses.  I wonder if a resident of Reims in the thirteenth century would have felt the same?


Well, I am back to my roots.  As you know, our church palapa burned down last year.  We have been meeting in a closed-for-the-summer restaurant.  But it is no longer summer and the restaurant needs to deal with meals for the stomach.  As a result, our soul meals on wheels needs to trundle off to a new location.


And a new location we have.  Over the past few months, our new location has been transformed from a weedy lot to a bare lot to a construction site to an almost completed palapa.

 

By this Sunday, it will be complete enough for the congregation to move in.  Not completed.  A work in progress. 

But what better symbol for the Christian experience?  Because none of us are complete.  As for me, I fit in the half-baked category.


On Saturday, we will meet as a work party to move chairs, books, and other service paraphernalia to the new site.


As you can see, the floor will be a bit primitive.  But not quite the circus tent primitive in the photographs.  A soil compacter is on its way to form a nice bed for an icing layer of gravel.  And soon, we will have a beautiful brick floor to complement our thatched roof.


So, if you would like to join us on Sunday at 10:30 AM, stop on by.  You will be welcome.


And, as far as I am concerned worshiping here will be every bit as real as worshiping inside the stone edifice of Reims.