Here's the church...

I remember a little hand game I was taught in Sunday school. Perhaps you were taught it as well.

You clasp your fingers together. Here's the church. Then you place your pointed forefingers together. Here's the steeple. Then you put your thumbs out, open the doors, and then raise your fingers. Here are the people.

About a month ago, the people of Fairview Baptist Church in Gainesville had to leave their little church and hold services next door in the fellowship hall, perhaps for the first time in the 50 years since their congregation was established.

The sanctuary was left unfit after a teenage vandal broke in, sprayed the walls with dark blue paint, and hosed down the pews and the carpet with the church fire extinguisher.

He left the ladies room damaged and also spray painted the church piano, toppled over the pulpit, and painted the baptismal behind it. In general, the sanctuary was a desecrated mess. "This is heartbreaking for God's children, Pastor Junior Jones said, "but we will overcome."

It took about two weeks to repaint the walls and get rid of the markings scrolled all over them, repair and replace the carpet and the pew covers, fix the ladies room, and restore the pulpit, the baptismal and the piano.

Church member Allan Burnette, who discovered the damage, and who was so appalled by it all, stood in his restored church recently and thanked all the people who had helped with their thoughts, prayers and gifts.

While their place of worship was lost for awhile, the church had never stopped. They just moved until it was time to come back to a sanctuary that Burnette said looked like new.

Burnette said he hoped the youngster who was arrested and accused of the vandalism would find his faith, be redeemed, and learn a lesson from his misdeed.

I think the lesson here is that while you can ruin a place of worship, you cannot stop or ruin the faith and the will of the worshipers.

"We will overcome," Pastor Jones said.

Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and here are the people. The people of Fairview Church were back in their sanctuary in time for Easter services a week ago.

"The Lord never let us down the whole time," Allan Burnette said.

(Jerry Gunn is a reporter for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029, SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET and AccessNorthGa.com.)