Road Trip A – 2022 – A Chapel

It is in the middle of an urban setting – but only an urban setting that Texas can do. For you see, this wonderful little chapel is stuck in the middle of … well, an eclectic setting. On one side is a major thoroughfare that has eight lanes and tens of thousands of cars every day. Across the highway is Trophy Club, a development with extraordinarily high priced homes. Over head are the planes arriving and departing DFW airport just to the east. Next door is a Fortune 100 headquarters. And just to the other side is a ranch with scores of longhorn cattle grazing away.

I’ve driven b y it before and wondered about it and the development going in. It’s like a little Mediterranean development just north/north east of Fort Worth. It’s so new that google maps doesn’t even show it yet.

So I decided to drive in to the development to see it first hand. It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday – and no one was around. No workers. No inhabitants. No security. The development was just inside Westlake development. Nearby, a preschool and a CVS had opened – and a Starbucks (of course) but nothing in the development that I could see.

The had put in a little canal. There will be offices (buildings there, just no interior work completed. I got out and walked the canal. I ventured over the walkway. And I squirreled around to the chapel. I even had to cross a “caution” tape area where the sidewalk had yet been put it.

As I approached the chapel – it was on a little peninsula all by itself. The inside has been completed but no furniture or anything but lights. I peeked into the windows. And then … I reached out to the door handle and found it unlocked. I stepped inside and took in the beauty and architecture.

A few things I noticed …

• I didn’t see any signs of any church or future church. I am not sure this is going to be a church at all.
• The beauty, the simplicity and the traditional approach to it was simply stunning.
• I think this was completely designed for weddings and events – not to worship. Which in society is okay, but what a waste – and what a sad lesson.
• The chapel, the setting, the other buildings look to be all designed to be photogenic and useful for events but not for worship.

How sad – yet how challenging to me as an individual … and to you, the reader as well. How often do we go to church and desire to “look” the part? We put on our Sunday best? We smiled pretend life is so happy? We wear a mask? We just put on a photogenic, instagram look but we really don’t worship?

Even during the week. We pretend to act like we think a Christian should act, we talk the talk, we put the bumper stickers on, we check the devotion apps, and we do all the right things … But we don’t really worship.

It’s not about location. It’s not about image. It’s not about looking the part – it’s about humbly coming before the God who took our broken, sinful, unworthy lives and saved us – so we come praising, seeking His face, striving to be more like Him.

I loved this chapel. But I really would rather meet in a broken down shack if that’s where I could truly worship.