Sanctuaries

 

                For twenty-nine Sundays, our church was displaced from its regular home while our sanctuary underwent a remodel.

                It doesn’t sound like a long time, does it? Just over six months? And when you think about how we pulled out pews and ripped up carpet, tore down walls, and then redid everything from scratch to shiny completion, it’s not a terribly long time.

                But six months is a long time to be gone from home, as you know if you’ve ever been gone from any kind of home for six months.

                We were wildly blessed, in that time, to move all of our church operations to a nearby Christian school. They welcomed us warmly and invited us to make their home our own. We held Sunday School and midweek classes in their classrooms. Our class met in the Language Arts room, and every Sunday morning I’d mentally correct the grammar in the exercise sentence the teacher wrote on the board before she went home on Friday afternoon. We sat with our knees bumping the bottoms of the student desks, and the class next to us met in the Art room, crowded around projects in process while they studied the Bible.

                Our services took place in the gym, which was the one spot in the whole building that didn’t have air conditioning. Did I mention we started this in June?

                The worship team and pastor stood on the stage, with theater curtains hanging on both sides, and the congregation sat in plastic folding chairs lined up on the basketball court.

                We had our pre-Sunday-School fellowship time in the cafeteria – swinging our legs over the picnic-style long tables to eat donuts and drink coffee.

                It was an adventure, for sure. And while I think we were all eager to “go home” to our beautifully expanded space, I have to say that this basketball floor with its rows of plastic folding chairs and theater-style stage indeed was a sanctuary for my heart in those twenty-nine weeks.

                When we moved there, I was in the middle of my summer speaking series, and I’d walk those rows of chairs to pray over them before the service began.

                And when I was done speaking and back to my spot in the congregation, I prayed and cried and laughed from my perch in the plastic pew.

                This was the room where our Sunday School teacher announced to the church that I was a candidate for the open position in the church. It was the room where I shared my heart with the people before they voted to affirm me for the role. It was the room where the votes were counted, and the chair of the leadership team announced that I would be taking the role.

                It’s the place where my next season of life and ministry began.

                And to me, it is a sanctuary. By architectural definition, the room is a gym. The stickers on the floor say that. The basketball goals affixed to the walls say that. But by dictionary definition, a sanctuary is a consecrated space, and that is what that room was for me.

                I learned and worshiped and prayed in that room. I felt as near to the Lord there as I did in the official sanctuary at our church – or any other church I’ve ever attended.

                Spaces are meaningful to me, and that gem-of-a-sanctuary, or should I say that gym-of-a-sanctuary, will always hold such special meaning to me. Like the rest of our congregation, I’m happy to be home. But I’ll always hold dear these twenty-nine weeks – sweat, plastic, and all. The Lord met me in that sanctuary. That will always matter.