Chatlos Memorial Chapel
Series: Old Country Churches
Before we left the property, I wanted to take one last look at the stone chapel. We’d attended a weeklong “intensive Bible study” at the Billy Graham Training Center, The Cove, near Asheville, North Carolina and now it was time to head back home.
When we arrived in Asheville a week earlier, we’d come to The Cove to have a look around a day before the seminar actually started. As you enter the entrance to the campus, the first thing you see off to the left is the chapel sitting up high against the mountain side with its eighty-seven (87) foot steeple crowned with a golden cross reaching another eight (8) feet up into the blue sky.
This chapel has to be one of the most beautiful in this country. Everything about it seems to have been designed and built for quiet meditation and prayer. Since it was Saturday, my idea was to attend services at the chapel on Sunday morning. But, when I asked the docent at the chapel about services, she told me that no services were held at the chapel. She said that sometimes visitors were inspired and stopped to sing a few hymns and to pray but actual services were held only on special occasions…maybe a Christmas candlelight service or something similar.
The training center does have a chaplain who is on duty on the campus, but I do not think he is a “pastor” in the sense of shepherding a congregation.
On hearing there would not be a service on Sunday morning, I was very disappointed but still, it is a beautiful chapel, and it does invite quiet meditation. As I wrote this, I got to wondering about the difference between a “church” and a “chapel” …. hadn’t thought of that before. So, I looked it up online (of course) and found that a chapel is a place of worship & prayer, primarily Christian but some synagogues have chapels, and chapels are usually small. A chapel may be within another larger chapel or within a church (think of a Catholic church with its smaller chapels to the side of the main sanctuary) or part of another building altogether that is not necessarily a church (think chapels within hospitals). It seems that a chapel refers primarily to the building or place. A church, on the other hand, can refer to the actual building where Christians meet to worship, the period of worship as in church service, a Christian organization, and/or the collective body of believers. (All this info comes from Wikipedia – see notes 7 & 8 below).
I learned something…but back to Chatlos Memorial Chapel at The Cove. The name comes from one of the main benefactors who donated funds for the chapel, The William Chatlos Foundation. When the Grahams purchased the 1500-acre mountain site at Porter’s Cove (the complex has since been expanded to 3500 acres), the plan was to build a training center where believers could come to learn about God and study the scriptures.
“My grandfather said that the only textbook at The Cove would be the Bible,” said Executive Director Will Graham. “That’s what we study from. We’ve been through all 66 books.” 2
The chapel, completed first and dedicated in 1988, includes four (4) stories, each level having a specific function. The ground floor of the building follows the contour of the mountainside and is used for training and seminars (capacity: 50-60). All training was conducted here until the more spacious training center was completed in 1991.
One level up and you will find a museum floor – a multi-purpose area that is also used for informal receptions and fellowship (capacity: 180). This floor provides access to a large outdoor deck complete with rocking chairs allowing contemplation while you enjoy the beauty of the mountain forest (and I did – who can resist a rocking chair?). The displays contain photos and memorabilia of the various Billy Graham Crusades and his lifelong ministry.
One floor up is the main chapel floor. The official entrance to the chapel is at this level although you can access the bottom floors from separate entrances at the sides of the building. The sanctuary can accommodate about 220 people. Its ceiling is forty (40) feet above the floor which is made of “heart-of-pine” which could have been harvested right there on the property (although I do not know for sure). There are five (5) windows on either side of the sanctuary that are an impressive twenty-eight (28) feet tall.1 No stained glass here – the view of the mountain forest outside would seem to demand that the glass be clear.
The pews were originally used at the Royal School for the Blind (circa 1790) and shipped to the site in North Carolina from England.5 The pulpit made of white oak was purchased at a secondhand shop in England and is estimated to be more than 200 years old, maybe as much as 400 years old.1&5
Oh, the stories that could be told about the sermons that were preached at that pulpit over the years. I do the math – even two hundred years back would have been about 1823. Charles Spurgeon was born in 1834 – what a thought to think that Charles Spurgeon might have preached at that very pulpit! But it is sad that few, if any, sermons are preached from that pulpit today.
We take a quiet moment to say a prayer at the pulpit adding ours to the thousands of other prayers that have been spoken at that pulpit and in that chapel. Moving to the top floor upstairs from the chapel is the prayer room just beneath the steeple. The “loft” is small and intended to be another quiet place for prayer and meditation.
The exterior of the building is clad in blue fieldstone quarried there on the mountain. A wooden cross which adorns the side of the chapel was created by the three (3) rock masons who added the cladding of stone to the chapel.
The chapel is beautiful in its simplicity and elegance, and it is easy to discern its intended purpose per Ruth Graham as a “haven for retreat, rest, relaxation and renewal.” 2 Ruth’s Prayer Garden surrounds the chapel providing even more opportunities to sit, relax, and wonder at God’s glory here in the mountains.
Believers come to this training site from all parts of the world to learn about God and to study the scriptures. Most visitors will come to the chapel at some point during their stay at The Cove – some will pause to sing a song or two – some will simply find a quiet place for study and reflection – almost all will stop for a moment as we did to say a prayer and thank God for this place and the opportunity to worship here.
As we departed our footsteps echoed throughout the empty chapel. While I felt the peace and solitude of the beautiful place, I was saddened that the chapel would remain mostly silent – no boisterous children in Sunday School singing about a boy named David at the top of their lungs, no women bustling about preparing potluck offerings for a good fifth Sunday fellowship dinner, no hands raised to heaven as the congregation sings “Blessed Assurance”9, no weddings, no christenings, no funerals, and rarely a preacher bringing the gospel while praying in his heart that just one more soul would be saved, Lord, and our hearts be blessed. In its solitude, the chapel will forever remain a chapel, pristine and lovely, but will never have a congregation and will never evolve to be a church.
Chatlos Memorial Chapel is located at 1 Porters Cove Rd. in Asheville. For more information, visit www.thecove.org.
Statement of Faith link (from The Billy Graham Training Center)
How to Know Jesus link (from The Billy Graham Training Center)
Sources for Information:
- The Chatlos Memorial Chapel: A Look Into the Past – Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove; Decision Magazine; 1989;
- The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove – Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove; Decision Magazine; March 1, 2018
- Our Story – Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove
- 7 Things You Should Know About the Chatlos Memorial Chapel & Visitors Center – Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove
- Faith & Footprints: The Chatlos Memorial Chapel – Asheville, NC | Osprey Observer; January 28, 2021; Kelly Wise Valdes; https://www.ospreyobserver.com
- The Cove Celebrates 25 Years of Ministry (billygraham.org) (This site includes photographs of the chapel being built.)
- Church – Wikipedia
- Chapel – Wikipedia
- Blessed Assurance > Lyrics | Frances J. Crosby (timelesstruths.org); 1873; Public Domain
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