Finding Faith ... in not taking our church for granted

By Pastor Devlyn Brooks

This past Sunday, I attended the close out auction of Scandia Lutheran Church in Averill, Minn., which is about 20 miles northeast of Moorhead, kind of directly north of Glyndon, and just a couple miles west of Highway 9.

You heard that right. … Close out auction. The auctioneers from McLaughlin Auctioneers of Dilworth said this was their first-ever close out sale of a church in their business’ nearly 40-year history.

The church, which held its last worship service on July 17, held the auction to sell off everything that was accumulated in 123 years of service, from the altar to the communion service set to even the metal coat racks that hung in the vestibule.

Even though I didn’t have a personal connection to the church, other than I had seen a TV news story about its last service in July, and then a couple of weeks later I saw notice of the auction in our synod newsletter, I decided to take a ride on a nice autumn Sunday afternoon. I thought it was a fine way to spend the day after our service on a Sunday.

Given that our own Faith Lutheran Church faces many of the same issues that Scandia had faced while it was still open, I was drawn to the church auction partly out of journalistic curiosity, partly because I enjoy auctions, and partly because I have empathy for those who voted to close their church. There by the grace of God go we, is what was in the back of my head, as we’d had just wrapped up our own church worship service just a couple of hours before the auction would be the last official church event ever at Scandia.

At the auction, as I sat in a front pew directly in front of the pulpit, and watched this quaint prairie church be sold a piece at a time -- pews, hymnals, the altar, the pulpit, kitchenware -- I felt a mixture of sadness and awe.

The good people of the congregation turned out in droves to give the church its final hurrah. In fact, there were even 200-plus online bidders participating. And their bidding, it seemed, was fueled by nostalgia as even ordinary household items fetched $100 or more. The altar sold for more than $1,000, and the pastor’s chair for $600.

But there was also a quiet sadness present. Multiple times during the four-hour sale, the auctioneers mentioned that this was one of the quietest sales they’d ever hosted. Try as they might, they never succeeded in lifting the crowd’s mood past a subdued reverence.

I came away from the auction with a box of antique catechism books and a porcelain statue of Jesus on the cross with the Roman Centurion bowing below. My $27.50 -- and the rest that was raised at the auction -- will be used to keep up the nearby Scandia Lutheran Church Cemetery, just three miles north of the church. If you follow the church attendance trends in the U.S., a similar story is repeating itself all across the country. A small, country parish can’t sustain itself any longer, and the congregation decides to sell off its church building and belongings to pay for the future upkeep of the church cemetery.

I plan to display the statue of Christ in my pastor’s office at our church to remind me of how fortunate we are to still be in operation.

As I share this story with you all, I offer up a blessing to the fine folks who made the heartbreaking decision to close Scandia Lutheran Church, and I tip my cap to the countless saints who came before them to carve a sacred house of worship out of the middle of a prairie. I will think of them every time I see their statue of Jesus in my office.

Faith Family, we know that we have something special here at our church. We’d do well to remember that we cannot take the future for granted.

Blessings to you. See you next Sunday!