Our Sanctuary Clock
By Marilyn Kettering Badger
May 23, 2016
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15. There is a time for everything, and everything on earth has its special Season. There is a time to be born and a time to die. A time…….and a time for………
Once, a student of mine, during a discussion about the problems many their sixth grade age face, listened and then raised his hand. His maturity was far beyond his 11 or 12 years of life and surprising me, he stood up and quoted the first eight verses of this scripture! Later the other children asked him where he learned that and he told them in Sunday School at church. Wow! Were they impressed – not only by his knowledge of the words but what they represented to each of them individually as they listened.
Prayer: Thank you for your consistency in our world. Help us to be timely in the use of “your time” as given to us in your creation. May we wisely make use of time and realize how valuable it is!
Our sanctuary clock was a gift to the church. Brother and Sister George Shidler donated the clock to the church. The council minute, item number 12, on April 17, 1897 states, “Moved and seconded that we give Brother and Sister George and Kate Shidler (Uncle George and Aunt Kate) an expression of our gratitude for the gift of a beautiful clock to be used in the church. The church gives the expression by a unanimous vote.” The wind-up part of the clock was later electrified (maybe in the 1950’s) and is still at the back of the sanctuary today.
Granted it is a different sanctuary, a newer location but still keeping up ‘timely’ and in tune with what is important in this world we live in. For over one hundred years we have not worried about the “ times in” and “times out” as a “time clock” causes us to consider. We really need a clock that only measures God’s timing for each of us. Do we really need to be clock-watchers at all? Notice at Maple Grove the minister is the one who faces the clock – not the congregation! Do not think there is any message in that observation though.
