Alford: Furniture Chapel

In the attractive Lincolnshire market town of Alford is a fine furniture shop. Its premises are imposing and commodious, for once it was a church. Whether Methodist, or Presbyterian or Congregational, I could not tell, but the gothic revival, the gallery and the luminosity rendered it a quintessential Victorian chapel. Much as I admired the furniture and the pleasant staff employed to sell it, I felt a sadness that this is what that chapel became. Haggai complains that God’s house stands in ruins while the people busy themselves with panelling and furnishing their own dwellings. Here, God’s house has become the showroom for what people’s homes may aspire to become. Any church or chapel which departs from God’s word will end up likewise. God cannot be mocked, and any who meet in His name but flout His word will not be suffered to continue.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. Rev. 2:5