St Andrew’s Church, Apley

St Andrew’s Church in the Lincolnshire village of Apley has to be one of the smallest in the county. A cheerful little Victorian edifice from 1871, it may once have served as a mortuary chapel where corpses were stored ahead of burials. An older church nearby was demolished and that which was dedicated to the dead became a place of fellowship for the living.

We speak of salvation and the Christian journey as the start of new life, of a transformation from death to vitality. Yet Dr Owen, among others, spoke of our mortification, the dying of the child of God to sinful lusts and wicked passions. Although we should all prefer a lively church to a dying dump, our churches would be better served if they were places where pride was killed, selfishness asphyxiated, idolatry executed and passions choked. Our message is one of turning from death to life, but also of putting to death and mortifying. May we meet in mortuary chapels, for when sin dies, we then truly live.  

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

-Romans 8:13

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