100th Church Reunion

Recently in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Central Mine Methodist Church celebrated their 100th reunion service. The church ceased operating as a functional body 100 years ago, but people who lived there (really mostly the descendents of people who lived there) come back one day every year to have a runion.

As you can see from this map, Central, MI is in the middle of nowhere. It's impossible that 300 people (the number that attended the service) even live in the whole town--though admittedly that's not the point. The church is a registered historic place, and the service was advertised as a summertime tourism event as well as a fun thing for local college students attending summer school to check out. Yeah right. I bet a lot of those summer school kids took advantage of that opportunity...

The original article notes that one woman travels from Germany every year to go to the reunion at Central Mine Methodist Church. Wow. This reunion service, and the power it has to draw hundreds of people together every year, is a powerful reminder of one of the benefits of a single church serving a community. When an entire community attends the same church (remember, this used to be the norm, even long after the Protestant Revolution in Europe), an enormously powerful bond is created. The church is not just a group of disparate people that come together on Sunday morning, but a group of people that live, work and play together every day of the week. And though I'd never want a state church, I guess there are benefits to a neighborhood or villiage church that everyone goes to.