Yesterday, I was driving through a neighborhood where I lived from 1983-1988. I drove past the chapel where I attended as a TBM, and was surprised to see that it’s now a Baptist church. That led me to do a little internet investigation.

The LDS chapel where my family attended when I was born up until I was seven years old is now a Montessori Academy.

The LDS chapel my family attended when I was ages 8-19, where I received the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, where I left for my mission, and where I also attended for a while after my mission…well, it was torn down and the land sold several years ago.

As I said above, the chapel I attended from 1983-1988 is now a Baptist church.

The chapel I attended from 1999-1994 is now an Assemblies of God church.

In none of these cases did the LDS church build a new chapel to replace the chapel that was sold or destroyed.

Families are Forever.

Chapels, apparently, not so much.

The church is savvy when it comes to knowing where to build their franchises. They do their studies. They know when to ditch their buildings when they are aging or in stagnant areas. They know which directions towns are growing.

When they build temples, they spend a lot of money trying to control the area around the temple so they can prevent it from running down.

I wonder if the home based church is the future model. You will still have meeting houses where the church membership is large but in areas they have less members it will be at home and then a temple.

Imagine getting the tax benefits of a religion without having to maintain buildings. Maybe they will switch to online as buildings are decommissioned.

I've always felt sorry for church members who financed the building of chapels, and even helped to physically construct the chapels, and then have the chapels sold out from under them. The church treats its members like trash.

summer Wrote:
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> I've always felt sorry for church members who
> financed the building of chapels, and even helped
> to physically construct the chapels, and then have
> the chapels sold out from under them. The church
> treats its members like trash.

For once we agree. The church does little to celebrate such work. I knew people who worked on our chapel, and was friends with their children (who were close to my age).

There is no effort to personalize chapels. Go into an old Episcopalian or Romanist chapel and you'll see plaques up on the walls celebrating old members and/or war dead. Our chapels have mass produced prints on the walls, stark lighting that looks if it belongs in a 1980s office environment etc. Even garden plants are heavily regulated. The only other place I've seen such grim impersonal sterility is in a Kingdom Hall.

Even non-members comment on how awful LDS chapels look. "Why do they all look the same?" etc. Most of them do. In some cases they're completely inappropriate to the location. Our chapel was often too hot or too cold, and seems to have been built for a desert environment.

They tend to be too hot or too cold mostly because they are empty for most of the week, and the HVAC is turned way down or off. It can take quite a while for heating, and especially AC to stabilize after it has been off for days, usually a day, or even longer if the HVAC is a barely adequate capacity for the size of the building.

Starting the HVAC a day ahead costs money.

There is a ward building near where I live. It is abandoned, the grass is brown, the windows boarded up and snashed in, UIt us fast becoming an eyesore. Bereft and symnbolic.

...the church no longer needs volunteer janitors for those non-existent chapels...

One chapel in Utah where my wife and I attended was sold to some church, and when I saw it again, the building had gained a gold dome.