The first time I set eyes on that grand old church building was in the cool of a January evening. Since it was in a southern state, there was no chilling cold to make me hurry back into my host's car, so the two of us casually made our way around the empty building. He was a synod president, and I was a churchwide senior staff person on an official visit to his synod.

The beautiful old building was locked tighter than a drum. There were quite obviously no meetings taking place in it that evening, which my host regretted because he was eager to show me the inside of the church. "No problem," I said. I had gotten into enough locked churches before with my trusty pocket knife, and with a few twists of the blade on a kitchen door latch we were inside the building. The fast-fading twilight was j…