A Week of Castles & Churches!

Hard to believe how fast a vacation can really go, but that's how I spent my last week - Traveling through the country side of Great Britain. In so many ways I now understand why they call it 'the Old Country'. Beyond the relaxation and site seeing I was a little over whelmed with number of churches and castles we saw.

What do castles and churches have in common in the land of history? Well both are generally big! Most have taken many years to build! Most are old (anywhere from the younger ones at 300 years to the ancient bricks of 1,000 plus years)! Most attract thousands of tourists! And the sad reality is that neither of them are actually fulfilling the purpose of why they were created in the first place.

Now the fact that the castles no longer stand as protection and security against opposing enemies is no doubt a good thing. Few are lived in and have become yet another tourist 'trap' - although a very pretty site, they are but a piece of history, crumbling away at their foundations. On a side note, I found a potential and quite lucrative career while there (if I ever need to move on) In just about every town and city we were in there is one business that seems repression proof: Scaffolding! That's right 'the rental of scaffolding' is booming as it seems just about every old building has some high point of restoration needing repair. My conclusion: Castles have become architectural items of beauty, history and decay in need of much repair!

As I viewed the hundreds of churches we traveled by and through I also realized most of them just might fall into the same category as the castle - beauty, historical and decaying as very few of them actually function to their original intent. Now we know 'the church' has really nothing to do with a building, a tradition or a country, yet these mass buildings were erected to live out the call of Christ to 'build my church'. Today beyond a special choir presentation, a celebration of Christmas and the occasional historical town event these large, beautiful buildings have become like castles - drawing the masses (tourists) to take a look as they travel through (and often leave a pretty healthy fee along the way - someones got to pay for the repair work) with very little to say of why they were built in the first place.

Is there a lesson in all of this? I guess as I share my passion for the church and do consider it as the 'hope of the world' I'm reminded once again the church is and must be about people. Not programs, not buildings and with a healthy respect for the past, not about traditions that like these ancient buildings that no longer serve the purpose in which they have been created for! They are but a reminder that the church is also in need of repair!