“Enough to Make a Grown Man Cry”
That’s what an old friend said after viewing the documentary of how Pilgrim Congregational Church, Redding, came to be. Imagine my excitement recently at the Cascade Theater, downtown Redding: folks entering, looking for friends and a place to sit. Eventually, 800 people filled the theater!
I was in Redding at the invitation of Shasta County Historical Society to witness the
Premiere showing of The Wright Time, interviews with five surviving members of the
Building Committee that caught Frank Lloyd Wright in a weak moment, inducing him into designing their church-to-be. I’m one of them.
Many folks crowding into the theater were well known to me. They were members of
Pilgrim Congregational Church almost 60 years ago, when it was less than two years old, with not quite 100 members. Several now have canes. One uses a walker. I had baptized one man as a child but he is now retired! I married a few others. One lady, according to her caregiver, was slipping into Alzheimer’s, but remembered some scenes in the film. Naturally there were fewer men than women among these old-timers.
It makes me profoundly thankful for those wonderful folk who, 50+ years ago, hung in with a young untried liberal minister in a conservative town, working on the notion that BEING a church trumped BUILDING a church. That meant our commitment to justice/social issues scared away some people from wanting to sit in our sanctuary, no matter who designed it.
Those were the days of the Vietnam War, hippies experimenting with LSD and The John
Birch Society. Last Sunday morning, Redding headlines were about a conservative evangelical church building a sanctuary for 2300 people, and an elected City Official recommending City Workers be allowed to carry concealed weapons while on the job!!
Yes, “……Enough To Make A Grown Man Cry.”
Ray
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