I’ve always admired the little chapel on the former grounds of the United Methodist Children’s home. It seemed to anchor the hurly burly along Broad Street. Sure, there are other churches. Selma seems to have a plethora of them — one on every street corner.

But this little wooden chapel with its stain glass windows just stands there. It’s simple in design and construction. It makes me think of a carpenter. After all, it was a carpenter who provided an earthly home for a man many call savior.

Last year during a storm, a tree fell on the chapel. For a bit, I was afraid this would be the end of the wee place of worship on Broad Street. But before long, workers cleared away the debris and mended the damage.

On Tuesday, I finally stepped inside the structure. It was as warm and nurturing as its hull seemed to represent. The woods of the pews, the floor and the altar all represented that simplicity most of us seek in our lives but have a hard time discovering because we’re too busy, as the poet William Wordsworth said, “getting and spending.” The windows in their pieces of colored glass tell familiar picture stories of Old Testament and New Testament.

I was not alone this Tuesday. A community of scholars and believers packed the structure.

In a way, we were all witnesses to a resurrection. This chapel had heard so many prayers and homilies in the past; then stayed vacant for awhile, almost ignored now became a focus for those who wanted to join in community again.

Members of the Lutheran Church’s Missouri Synod and its caucus of African-American ministers and people from Concordia College and the community watched as the college’s chaplain began the procession with a blessing.

The scriptures were read; prayers offered and hymns sung.

The chapel will become an integral part of the Concordia community, and in doing so, becomes a part of our much larger community of Selma.

As I sat there, watching this rebirth and communion, the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn came to mind:

“Love Divine, all love excelling,

Joy of heaven, to earth come down,

Fix in us Thy humble dwelling,

All Thy faithful mercies crown.”