Some historic churches appear largely unchanged as they sit nestled in their original location. Others have been repurposed, remodeled, moved, modified and many are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They have become homes, apartments, lodges, storage sheds, schools, gift shops, and museums.
A sad-looking old church sits atop a grassy knoll at a fork in the road where an old U.S. highway splits off to make way for a new highway. The grass is overgrown, obscuring the path to the rubble that once served as steps leading to the sanctuary.
A home now fills the sanctuary of one that once opened its doors to the small-town worshippers.
Another sits empty along the shores of a lake of what was once a frontier town with a promising future.
Several former churches have been transformed into museums and others have become spaces for celebrations and meetings.
The New Providence Missionary Baptist Church, now home to the Bagdad Museum was built in the 1880’s and moved to its current location in 1980s.
The 1907 Hawthorne Historical Museum and Cultural Center is housed in the former African American New Hope Methodist Church.
The original Sacred Heart Catholic Church of New Smyrna Beach, built in 1899, was restored in 1999 to take on new life as the Mary S. Harrell Black Heritage Museum.
St. Andrew’s Church in Jacksonville was dedicated in the 1880s as a tribute to the late Bishop John Freeman Young. One hundred years later it was abandoned and in a state of decay. The deconsecrated Old St. Andrew’s, as it is now known, serves as an event venue under the care of the Jacksonville Historical Society.
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