For 15 years I lived across the street from an empty Salvation Army building. The grass was always cut, the building problems were promptly attended to when we called about street people moving in and etc. Granted, they didn’t paint the trim and it started to look bad before they sold it, but all in all they were decent absentee owners.
Somewhere in that time an energetic young pastor started outdoor services every Sunday during nice weather. He probably had a sum total of 10 people show up. He tried valiantly to build a congregation, but no luck. He did hold services for few months and I found it hilarious that my extremely progressive and tolerant neighborhood was not at all tolerant about Christian goings-on’s. They were so concerned that someone might be offended! They earnestly queried me and DH about how bothered were were by this display of (horrors!) Christian ferver.
This was long about the same time I was seeing the light politically, as referenced in another thread. A light bulb was going off in my head.
I was usually out working in my garden during the services because it’s the only time I had to work in the Garden, the weekend. I do remember once changing clothes to put on a longer pair of shorts because the pair I was working in were pretty short and kind of awful and really not appropriate for church!
For anyone who wondered what happened to the property, the Salvation Army sold it to a developer who sat on it and let it go downhill. That developer sold it to another developer who let it go downhill and then he Razzed the building which is fine since it was a modern building. And then yet a third developer came by to build high-end houses and we are very happy about that.
In renovating our house DH would often go to the Salvation Army Center downtown and pick up a day laborer to help him with this and that. He probably did that 6-7 times.