When the Ark Got Parked

When David moved the ark of the covenant from Philistia to Jerusalem, he taught us some important lessons on how to welcome and celebrate the presence of God.

The decision to relocate a Meeting House of a coastal Congregational church came one Sunday morning — in the middle of a sermon.

For a number of years the membership had been vigorously debating the cons and pros and costs of lifting the entire structure on steel girders, sliding it to the far back of the parking lot, setting it on crib work, blasting the granite from the ground, pouring a new foundation, then setting the entire edifice down — 35 feet back from the intersection at the edge of the road where it had sat on gray granite blocks since 1849.

Back in the day of horses, ox carts and gravel roads, back when this church was built, no driver or rider ever came around that corner out-of-control.

But then came hot black tarmac and swift motorcars, a growing population and, by 1990, a need for more Sunday school space.

One fateful Sunday morning, the conclusion to relocate the church came nearly unanimously, and quite suddenly, when a careening car, having failed to negotiate...