In 2018, just a year after I left Truth Christian Academy for much greener pastures, the two principals retired and the whole school fell apart. Church was still held at the Columbine Hills church of the Nazarene on Sundays. However, the church closed abruptly during the start of the pandemic, and the building’s since fallen into severe disrepair. 

I didn’t realize that church was abandoned until I started picking up Eric for writer’s group, which meant I got to drive right by the church on Coal Mine Avenue every Monday evening. At first, I noticed that the lawn and parking lot surrounding the church were overgrown, and the sign out front of it never changed. Then, I noticed that a cop or two liked to park in the empty lot, at least for a few weeks. After that, the cops stopped parking there. 

Then, I started to commute to CU Denver every weekday, which meant that I got to drive past the church every morning while hauling ass down Kipling Parkway. On one of those mornings, I noticed that several of the windows towards the back of the church were broken, and nobody came to board them up. 

With my curiosity piqued, I decided to look up the church online and discovered that it had been listed for sale in 2022, then bought by a developer in 2024. Then just today, I decided to Google it again out of boredom while I was thinking of something to write, and discovered that it has become a favorite hangout spot for “urban explorers” (AKA bored teenagers who like to trespass abandoned buildings and break shit), as it awaits demolition. 

There’s a metaphor somewhere in this, though I can’t quite put a finger on it.