A writerly piece for you today, just for fun, about Jesus and a nostalgia for church steeples: “Sitting with Jesus in the church Steeple” (Hope you enjoy this little piece regardless of your background)

Spiders and webs in the steeples, we were sure about that as kids. I used to have the master key at my dad’s church, and would sneak up into the steeple. Baptist steeples are enclosed and the bells are recorded. That always slightly bothered me, but when you got inside, there was a sonic bathing warmth to it, that still seemed sacred to me.

I used to go up there alone and just sit above the sanctuary, and consider all the unseen spaces in the building, where few but deacons and janitor’s went. Those are still my favorite places in church buildings really. The unseen sacred, where all the silent prayers gather without our making of meals, ice cream socials and service after service. Spaces where the invisible church hides out, and knows itself.

When i lived in Europe, i would also try to find the little prayer chapels, saint rooms, and places of refuge where the older ladies would come in and say a silent prayer for someone lost. Something about those spots have an atmosphere of truth in them. You can almost smell it.

When we all switched to house churches, and bowling alley churches, and coffee house churches, i still missed the steeples and prayer chapels—the unseen crypts of the church. I got it, don’t get me wrong, the Kingdom is bigger than our buildings, so is the church. Yet, in a house, there is no where to sneak off to and just be. Someone lives in every room, and there is a present story in every nook and cranny. The unseen usually shifts to the rooftops, or some place no one thinks to go.

I still like church buildings, though I know they are not the actual eternal church. I like architecture that makes us look up and beyond. Architecture teaches us to see the unseen. Structures which cause and call forth pause, and even praise. Windows which look in and cause us to look out and up in another light.

Even the metaphors of the sacred were meant to be taught by the buildings. And all the religious wars were fought through architecture of the sacred.

I like the obvious cross shaped altars and sanctuaries, but I still get drawn into the backstage rooms, where monks pray and homeless get fed. That seems to me where the real church often happens, and I like to be exactly where Jesus actually is now in the building. I mainly wanted to be where Jesus was, still do. Sometimes in a cob webbed steeple, sometimes enjoying ice cream.

Is He hanging with the deacons in the alleyway behind the church. Is He with the youth sneaking a cigarette in the parking lot. Is He with the elderly woman who is just enjoying hearing the bible read. Or the old prayer ladies who pray for the preacher weekly while he is delivering His word.

As a kid, i always found Him hiding in the steeple, just listening to it all in love, and occasionally coming into the service, when people were really hungry for His presence. I liked being backstage with Jesus as a kid, and I still do, wherever He is even among the spiders and webs up in a baptist church steeple. Jesus is still ironic in that way.