By CHRISTIE MASTRIC,

Journal Staff Writer

It’s a good thing many, if not most, parishioners believe their churches are more than just brick and mortar. They represent all the good thoughts and deeds that sprung from the people who sat in their pews over the years.

I have first-hand knowledge of this.

I attended Catholic grade school from first to third grade, specifically, St. John the Baptist Catholic School in South Bend, Indiana. The school and church were in one building, which made it fairly easy in the winter– you didn’t have to put on your winter attire to travel from school to church and back in the morning.

However, the girls still needed to wear their veil. Yes, back in the day, if you forgot your veil, you had to wear tissue on your head to be in sync with church rules. Bobby pins did have their purpose.

Anyway, I became fond of that church, especially the votive candles that flickered in the corner. You could be stone-cold atheist and still pick up some religious fervor by being transfixed by the flames coming from the little candles.

Unfortunately, fire was not always kind to my church. As I recall, a floor fan gave off a spark and lit some vestments, which ignited a blaze that destroyed the church. Seeing the flames lick the roof of my beloved church was not one of my fondest memories of 1969.

The school had smoke damage, but fortunately was left intact.

Our family moved out of the area as the new church took shape, but since we were gone, I don’t recall much of it. I do recall the original St. John’s and some of its happenings: Sister Blanche, the school principal, chastising us kids for not singing heartily enough; being mildly disappointed at my first taste of a bland communion wafer, thinking it would be sweeter; and, of course, the votive candles.

However, congregations really are the heart and soul of a church, even when that church no longer exists.

Recently, Victory Lutheran Church at K.I. Sawyer closed, although another church now is reportedly using the building.

Victory Lutheran’s secretary, Sheryl Stiemke, talked with me about her church closing.

The church had operated continuously for 22 years, she said, but membership had dropped to 10 before it closed.

“It just wasn’t viable anymore financially,” Stiemke said.

COVID-19 also didn’t help.

However, the church was active in the community, running a food pantry; putting on clothes giveaways, pig roasts and vacation Bible studies; sending kids to Bible camps; and operating youth groups.

Certainly, the people who benefited from these activities will remember all their lives what the church did for them. In that way, Victory Lutheran Church lives on.

So, what will Stiemke miss most about her church? Again, it is the human factor.

“We were a family,” she said.

The members of the former St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in the city of Marquette probably felt like a family as well. In 2016, their church closed after 117 years, with membership down to the point where there just weren’t enough actively committed people.

I believe the building is being used in a non-church capacity, but am not sure how. I just hope the former St. Mark’s congregation is continuing to do good works elsewhere.

Individuals who attend one church can join another one, but each church, I suppose, has its own “aura” that others do not. Maybe the personalities of the people who attend regularly, or the charitable works in which they’re involved, set them apart from each other.

It’s sort of like making a fort when you’re a kid. The chances of a makeshift fort making it past a few months of existence are not great, but in the 1970s, our summer fort — made from construction materials cleaned from nearby home sites and decorated, I believe, with carpet swatches — lasted most, of not all, the entire season.

The site on which it sat has long replaced by an upper-middle-class home. However, the memories of that fort linger, and I realize now it wasn’t about the wood and carpet; it was about the good times we had within its feebly constructed walls.

In that same vein, churches are more than stained glass windows, altars and pulpits. Good deeds, prayers and camaraderie don’t go away when churches close.

Their people just use them in a different way.