In our last edition of the Wicket Gate, we gave a brief outline of how we had renovated the premises that we now occupy for worship and work, and recommended that any small church looking for accommodation should have their eyes open towards buildings that seem to be somewhat less than traditional.
A piece of news from a brother on the “Mission Field” in Brazil fits very well into the general drift of that article. He has just purchased a Bar and converted it into a church building; and what’s more is now negotiating the purchase of another Bar next door to use as Sunday School accommodation and a manse! Before any one rushes to conclude that that is all right for the “Mission Field,” let me remind you that the same thing happened in Scotland itself over a century and a half ago.
At the time of the “Disruption,” when the Free Church of Scotland came into being, in 1843, many congregations of the Lord’s people found themselves without church accommodation. As with any initial movement, zeal and non-conformity were very much the order of the day, and manys an ingenious arrangement was arrived at for the gatherings of the church.
The one we have in mind took place at Symington, in Ayrshire, and is recorded in the Annals of the Disruption, as follows: - “The very day after I left the old church,” says Mr Orr, “the elders and others set to work to find a temporary place of worship, and they fortunately procured for that purpose an old public house, which was then empty. They took down all the partitions, threw all its rooms into one, had it all seated by the following Sabbath, and it was sufficiently large to hold a good congregation. I preached there for nine months with great comfort and satisfaction. My pulpit was an old door laid across two small tressles, and upon it a table and a chair and it was the finest pulpit I ever occupied.” We are not bound to follow any “rules” where no rules exist.