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Articles from the S4 team
One thing we could do is nothing. Close your eyes and imagine what that would look like: large broken-down stagnant spaces on just about every other block, city wide; a few people deep in nostalgia about their house of prayer; a lot of people scratching their heads about the meaning of life and not knowing where to even start looking for it.
So many congregations are going out of missional work — in a way, their business — or merging or both. The pace of closings of buildings, if not congregations, is increasing as congregations get smaller and buildings get more expensive to maintain. Religious institutions are definitely in hospice — or at least experiencing a death on a cross somewhat of our own making. We have failed to move people to God for a long time and people (not God) have left the building. We have also been "gentrified" out of business in many places. Yet in this sizable grief, there is a joy hidden in plain sight.