Cowgill's Quandry

Here are some pictures from the Ad Board meeting I attended at Cowgill on Sunday. There is a problem at Cowgill which is a backwards problem than the one we usually hear about in small rural or small town (declining in population) churches. In Cowgill's case, it isn't that the congregation can't reach out to their community, either because its so set in its ways or doesn't have the energy, that is NOT the case in Cowgill. Due to Don and Kristi Rohrboch and their active leadership in this church (which has an average age of well over 70), their enthusiasm for the Lord and their community, Cowgill has sponsored, over the last two years, after school tutoring, a VBS, Sunday morning breakfast for youth, and a Girls' Night In for any community pre teens or teen girls as a "self-image raising through faith" kind of an overnight. And this spirit has infiltrated some of the older members who are helping out with these things and realizing how important it is to meet the needs of the community as it is, not as it was.

So the problem??? The largest part of their building, the very pretty sanctuary, has serious structural damage. Estimates so far say that to repair it correctly would take $250,000. Our district is paying for a construction engineer to take a thorough look at both the sanctuary and fellowship hall. At this meeting on Sunday, the board members looked at the possibilities of razing the building and putting a metal building up that would enable the ministries that are needed there now. They thought about what it would be like to allow the fellowship hall to be kept but the sanctuary to be razed. And they were doing it openly and honestly. It is hard for folks who have been in the church all of their very long lives to think about this kind of change. I am sure some really want "to be buried out of this church" and they don't mean the fellowship hall. The church's amazing student pastor Amanda Ross is leading the church so very well--not following up behind, but LEADING.

Sunday, I stated that I believe that the building decision has got to be based on what the mission of the church is now. Cowgill needs Cowgill UMC. Especially the large numbers of poor who have moved in need Cowgill UMC. Some of those same persons and others two who yearn for meaning and love need Cowgill too. (BTW there is an interesting phenomenon going on on Sunday mornings in Cowgill...the Volunteer Firehouse has several families of their volunteer firefighters ,some with not much money at all, that gather there to shoot the breeze, and visit and share their week and, one woman at the meeting said on Sunday, pray....what can we learn from this???)

A church with ministry to do and that is energized to do more...I did sing to them, "We Are the Church" at the beginning of my remarks..."The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people..." I am not sure about the direction this discussion will take...but I do know with certainty that God can do far more than we can ask or imagine. I'll keep you up to date!