In a place long filled with light and song, the silence now is loud.
Church leaders walked the aisles of St. Paul Lutheran Church this week, days after a fire ripped through the building in South Oak Cliff.
“It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?” said Paul Jones, the church’s head elder.
Pastor Byron Ray Williams Sr. said even as they take in the damage, the congregation is holding fast to familiar words.
“In the midst of all of this, as Paul said in the Scriptures, we’re hard pressed on every side, but we’re not crushed,” Williams said, pointing out several reasons for gratitude.
No one was hurt in the fire. The building is still standing, though the interior suffered heavy damage. And the day the fire broke out, winter weather had forced the church’s daycare to close.
“Nobody was here that day, and it could have been horrific,” Jones said. “By God’s grace, we were closed that day.”
Worship areas were destroyed, including the stage where the choir once sang and the church’s organ. But among the charred pews, Bibles remained intact.
“It’s amazing to see,” Jones said. “Just as hot as this fire was, and the fire department says it was an extremely hot fire.”
This Sunday, the congregation’s song returned. Not from the choir loft, but from a small building next door, where members gathered as part of an interim plan to continue worship.
“It was good for us to meet today. We needed to see each other,” Jones said. “We need to comfort each other. We need to sing hymns of praise and be thankful that we made it through and that the bad things did not happen.”
Williams said the fire has reinforced a belief long held by the congregation.
“Church is not necessarily a building,” he said. “The church is in the heart of the believers.”
A GoFundMe raising donations to the church has been set up here.