{"id":910,"date":"2022-08-25T16:39:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T16:39:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/?p=910"},"modified":"2022-08-25T16:39:43","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T16:39:43","slug":"rural-churches-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/2022\/08\/25\/rural-churches-and-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Churches And Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

On our recent road trip to Ohio we stopped along a rural US Highway and I took photographs of several old churches.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some of you may remember my blog on The Old Church At Freeport.\u00a0 The churches that I shot on this last trip are located on that same highway.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What was my fascination with these old churches?\u00a0 Probably the fact that they have survived in spite of declining members and maintenance money.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least two of the churches that I have photographed along that road are no longer in service, one of them being that old church at Freeport.\u00a0 One of the churches was listed in the regional organization as having only 70 members.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t seem like a lot of financial support for maintaining older buildings.\u00a0 Utilities and insurance on uninsulated frame buildings in a rural area could be outrageously high. \u00a0And the fewer members there are to share those expenses the higher cost to each member.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I doubt converting any of these churches into other uses would be successful because of their location.\u00a0 There doesn\u2019t seem to be enough of a customer base for shops, restaurants or multi-family dwellings among these farms and country homes.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet, somehow, these churches survive.\u00a0 For the most part these churches are maintained.\u00a0 Worn out shingles have been replaced with metal roofs. You know the utilities are hooked up when you see those electric candles light up in the windows at dusk. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those signs of maintenance spell out hope to me.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hope that those churches will survive another decade or more.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Hope that those members will keep the faith and continue to gather together for worship.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Hope that the area itself will survive and even thrive.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hope.\u00a0 A powerful force.\u00a0 A force given to me by the faithful members of those old surviving churches.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our recent road trip to Ohio we stopped along a rural US Highway and I took photographs of several old churches.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1009,1011,109,1007,1013,836,1014,1012,424,1010,1008],"class_list":["post-910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-buildings","tag-candles","tag-church","tag-churches","tag-electric-candles","tag-hope","tag-maintenance","tag-metal-roofs","tag-old","tag-roofs","tag-rural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourartsmagazine.com\/kathykmcclellan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}