Here’s one that is sad:

My previous church - worship center over 100 years old - had the tower taken off about 30-40 years ago. Well, not the bell, which was still there, but the steeple part. Now the building has a very distinctive, ornate, red brick architectural style. Somewhere along the way, some of the members decided that they missed the entire community not being able to see them from anywhere in the county, so they started a movement to replace the steeple. Not wanting to spend much money on it, they they found an aluminum shell steeple to set on top of the tower. It’s white. Colonial style. It looks completely ridiculous, according to everyone I know.

Praise God, I was months gone before they did it. I would have been embarrassed to show my face around town.

In a funny true story, a member came in about 4 months ago after we had been quite a while into our current renovation. We had just put the first coat of paint on the outside of our buildings and there was a distinctively different look about our campus. She came in and said, “When did we take the steeple off?”

I paused, shocked actually, and said, “About 20 years ago.” She said, “No, that’s not true.” Her Dad was standing beside her and I asked him about it. His response was, “Well, it’s been a pretty long time.” I checked with another long time member who confirmed that it had been 20 years. This lady, over 50, has been attending NB since birth.

I had a lot of laughs over that one.