Lloyd Strickland
When I was a child, and that was a long time ago, my parents and I made regular trips to visit my aunt and uncle in Missouri. It was a long tiring day, and the first part of the trip was across the prairie of eastern Colorado and western Kansas. It’s country sort of like southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Genoa is just one of many little towns on the edge of survival in eastern Colorado, but one with a unique idea. In 1926 some innovative fellow built a tower there. It was called the “Wonder Tower.” I gazed upon it in carsick wonderment as we tootled by. We never once stopped.
Mr. Google tells me that the tower is still there along with a couple of really old cars filled with mason jars parked alongside. It’s just off of I70, and costs a buck to tour.
I don’t know how high it is, but it was advertised on the signs leading up to the town as something akin to the eighth wonder of the world. The signs said that you could see six States from the top. That might be a bit of a stretch.
I’ll never know what you could see from the top of that tower. We never stopped there, and I always felt a bit deprived by never being able to climb to the top of that tower.
Many people today view churches the same way. They never stop. They zoom right on by. They think that churches are a sort of roadside, or “life-side”, attractions, which are well past their prime, that should have been torn down long ago, but somebody doggedly keeps them going.
That idea is wrong. Churches are not buildings. There are Churches and there are church buildings. Do you see the difference? The church is defined as the “Communion of the saints.” Those are just ten dollar words which tell us that people are the church. It is much more than a decrepit roadside attraction or an obsolete organization.
Please stop on your life’s road and check out your neighbourhood church family. You will find the view great. You can see right to eternity.