On the placement of chapels...

[Ironhold]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodward,_Oklahoma

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Woodward,+OK+73801/@36.4196067,-99.428198,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x87a8c50e19cb177f:0x23d36f20a1802a9b!8m2!3d36.4336481!4d-99.3903862!16zL20vMHpieTI?entry=ttu

As I've mentioned before, due to injuries it's difficult for me to travel long distances at a stretch. I still want to travel, but it's not easy to do so. 

To compensate, one thing I'll occasionally do is pull up Google Maps, meander on over to a random town, and start poking about. 

I was going through the town of Woodward, Oklahoma, when I spotted what Google Maps says is the local chapel. 

The chapel is on Main Street, meaning that it's across the street from and seemingly shares a parking lot with one of two local grocery stores. 

However, the chapel is *also* two blocks down from the local comic book shop. 

There's a part of me that wonders if the house that's *between* the chapel and the comic book shop is up for sale... 😇

Now, the church does generally try to place chapels in nice residential areas. But that doesn't always happen. 

This has me wondering - have you ever lived in a place where the chapel had some rather interesting neighbors? 

 

edit - 

Apparently there are *two* chapels in Woodward, a second one on Quail north of a pair of local colleges. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Ironhold

[NeuroTypical]

My ward building sits on the main corner of a town so small it's not even a town.  For over 20 years, there's been a nice sign on our property placed there by the community that says "The Churches of [LM's town]".   Under the sign are handpainted shingles for the Catholics, the community church, the Lutheran church.  About 12 years ago, they finally let our church hang our shingle on that sign.  The sign that stood on our property.  The sign we allowed to be placed on our property, even though they wouldn't let us hang our shingle on it for a bunch of years.

Things are all good now.  As the story was told to me: The community church across the street was in dire needs of some groundskeeping, and put out a call to it's members. Only the pastor and one little old lady showed up, and were doing what they could in the July heat ('80's into '90's).  Across the church in our parking lot, the young men had gathered earlier in the day to go do some service project.  When the YM returned, they saw the little old lady slaving away in the heat, and decided to go over and help for an hour.  That Sunday, the pastor gave a pretty energetic sermon about Jesus washing feet and healing the sick and whatnot, and only one of you people managed to show up, and how Christ's call to service had been answered by one old lady and half a dozen mormon teenagers.  And he would no longer tolerate a single negative word about the Christianity of the church across the street, and y'all ought to be ashamed of yourselves, etc.   Then we got to hang our shingle on the sign.  

[askandanswer]

The location of the chapel in my town reminds of a description I once read of Palmyra at the time of Joseph Smith, with a church on each corder of one particular intersection. On our left we have the Lutherans, on our right we have the Anglicans (Australia's version of the Church of England) and directly over the road we have the Catholics. 

The first temple in Australia, along with all the buildings and offices that made up the Australia Pacific Area Office, and Mission Home and Mission Office are all located on a large block of land that used to be a major administrative office for the Church of England, back before they started calling themselves Anglicans. They moved out and we moved in. Sadly, the Area Office relocated to New Zealand about 5 years ago, so now there are very few people working in those buildings.  

[mikbone]

I was on vacation in Maui 5-7 years ago, and saw one of our Chapels right across the street from the beach.  It wasn’t till that moment when I understood why some people shop around for their home ward.

Let me think of a young men’s activity.  🤔 

[Traveler]

In times past the LDS members in a community played a much larger role in financing and building local churches.  For certain reason I will limit concerning a personal revelation I received while engaged at a local meeting house in Maryland.  It was revealed to me that all meeting houses are placed under the direction of our L-rd.  That they are His to determine and provide and His specific placement for his purpose.  Those that participate in the building and care of our chapels and temples will be noted and greatly rewarded with divine blessings including blessings of protection from the adversary.   In addition, this spiritual protection is extended somewhat to the community in which temples and chapels reside.  That if communities and Latter-day Saints realized the great value of such structures, they would gladly pay 10 times the value to have them in their communities and would sacrifice even their very lives to maintain and keep them that there may be a spiritual (and perhaps even a physical) refuge both now and for what is to come.

 

The Traveler

[Ironhold]

More urban exploration, this time to the town of Mineral Wells, Texas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_Wells,_Texas

The good news is that the chapel is across the street from the public library, both on South 22nd. 

The bad news is that *both* structures are across the street (MLK) from an industrial complex. 

Looking at Google Maps, it seems that a green space was placed as a buffer between the complex and a residential area, and so the open space was deemed a prime location for both facilities as they're able to serve the residential area *and* they aren't far from the main east / west highway. 

They do have a small cinema in the back of a large shopping center, but I'm not seeing any comic book shops aside from whatever the local Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree would have.

 

[Ironhold]

Oh, the map of Woodward has been changed. The church downtown *isn't* a chapel, but the church north of the college is. Either the congregation moved locations and the map didn't initially update it, or something else caused both structures to be labeled as chapels when only one was.