Why I love my "Charlie-Brown church": my humble Sunday morning home turned out to be a surprise blessing.(one more thing)(Essay)

They talked about it being a sacrifice.

Those of us who decided to be part of our church's new satellite location would give up the comforts of our modern building, complete with banks of windows and a cool steeple, in a chi-chi Chicagoland suburb.

Instead we'd meet at a tired community center in the one-block downtown of a nondescript 'burb. We'd gather there for a year or two--until the nearby building we purchased underwent a transformation from a business into a church.

I felt called to this new congregation. So for two years my church home became this "gymnatorium"--a hardwood-floored room with basketball hoops and gymnastics mats attached to …