I don’t know about you, but I have been thinking a great deal this week about the New London church collapse.  On the surface, the church collapse affected two congregations who worshiped in that sacred space—Engaging Heaven Church (the congregation who owned the building) and First Congregational Church New London (a fellow United Church of Christ congregation who had sold the building some years ago and continued to worship there).  Rev. Isaac Lawson, our region’s Associate Conference Minister in the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ, invited our churches to hold the congregations in prayer.  We did so on Sunday, and I encourage us to continue to pray for those who lost their church home (and be thankful that miraculously no one was hurt). 

What makes this situation so sad is that this church collapse affects more than these two congregations.  It affects the people helped by them as the church was known for helping those who are homeless in New London.  The landscape and the skyline of the city of New London has forever changed.  A historic church built in 1850 is now a pile of stones and debris.  It’s just such a sad situation.

As we know all too well, it is not easy to preserve historic churches.  
Here at Colchester Federated Church, we are worshiping in our Fourth Meeting House. 
A Meeting House that was dedicated in 1842.  

CT Insider posted a story yesterday about how the church collapse in New London should wake up Connecticut residents.**  To help us understand how urgent the need is to preserve historic houses of worship across our state.  Stories were shared about the costs of preserving historical congregations like Faith Congregational Church UCC and Center Church (The First Church of Christ UCC) in Hartford.  I commend the whole article to you (with the full disclosure that Neill is one of the Managing Editors with Hearst Connecticut Media!)

Though it’s especially important to note that these historic buildings (like ours) don’t just have value to those of us who call any particular church our church home, they have value to the community.  As I am writing this Thursday Thought in my church office (on Wednesday morning), workers are here from Valley Restoration.  The work has begun to make the necessary structural repairs to the front of our historic church.  Today the old organ bellows are being removed, and much more work will be happening in the weeks and months ahead.  All I know is that this historic church is worth preserving, not just for ourselves but for future generations of people who will one day call Colchester home.  I hope that you believe that too.

Love,
Pastor Lauren 

**Jesse Leavenworth, “New London church collapse spotlights need to preserve CT’s historic houses of worship, advocates say” CT Insider, January 31, 2024,
https://www.ctinsider.com/connecticut/article/new-london-church-collapse-ct-preservation-18634727.php

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

Thursday Thoughts 2/1/24