You Can’t Paint That Wall

If you walk into FBC of Sister Bay, Wisconsin, turn right past the gym doors, and take another right, you'll be in the youth room. I don't know if it still looks this way, but when I was the youth pastor there, it was covered from one end to the other in handprints.

There was a tradition. Every graduating senior would press a paint-covered hand against the wall, then sign and date it.

By the time I arrived, the youth group had waned, and with it, the graduating class. No hands had pressed the wall in years. But the wall was still covered, end to end, with the hands of people who had long since moved on from the church.

When I suggested we repaint it and start a new tradition, I thought I was doing something useful, but when I said it out loud, I was met with silence. 

One couple stayed after the meeting. The wife had worked in the youth group for years, and she pointed to her daughter's handprint — a living, grown daughter, off building her own life now. That print meant a lot to her. 

Her husband pointed to another print, further down the wall — a girl who'd been killed in a car accident a few miles from the church,not long after she'd signed it. That was the last place on earth you could hold her hand.

For the folks in that church, those hands weren't clutter to clear out.

I turned that room into the game room and moved the meeting down the hall.

Some traditions hold a church back from growth, others into apostasy, and some are worth leaving alone.

Bless you, 

Pastor