Shoaf A recent newspaper article tells about an abandoned church that is dangerous to the community. The writer mentions that the windows are broken, the doors are hanging on one hinge, and kids play in and around the building. The article, of course, is talking about physical danger. Kids are drawn to places that look daunting. I can remember playing in abandoned houses and old stores when I was a kid. We would find big gaps in old rocks and wiggled our skinny bodies into those crevices to hide. They were our secret caves. We thought they held an aura of danger. At least we hoped so. We never told our parents about those places because we thought they would forbid us to play there.

Abandoned churches are dangerous to more than the physical damage they could do to little people. They are dangerous to our souls.

It seems that many people have abandoned the church. People who grew up in the church; people who found solace, hope and inspiration, then went off to college and dropped out of church. They get married, have children and for one reason or other they get out of the habit of offering their children the joys and comfort of what church and Sunday school did for them. The church is abandoned.

God sent Ezekiel to a valley of dry bones to speak to the bones; and when he did, God put breath in those old bones. The bones started rattling and connecting, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, sinew by sinew, until they were all together and then covered with skin. But those bones didn't have life. One thing was missing — the breath of God. So God breathed into them and they became alive again.

When we worship in churches with empty pews, it reminds us that our churches are being abandoned right before our eyes. There are dry bones in our communities. And there is lack of spiritual life. We need God to breathe into us the Spirit of life. When we worship each week, in our different places of worship, we could all pray for one another. Pray for all the churches in the community. Then expect our churches to once again be full of life.

Wouldn't it be great if we had to build bigger churches instead of bigger sports arenas?

One and all God calls us to come back and receive the breath of life.

Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD. Ezekiel 37:4-6

Bonnie Shoaf is pastor at Burlington United Methodist Church.