By the Toledo Tribune
It’s a funny thing, the way old buildings hang on. Like stubborn grandfathers in creaky recliners, they creak and moan and insist on sticking around — and once in a while, someone gets the idea that maybe they still have some use after all. That’s what happened with The Ark, a 1930s movie theater in downtown Newport that has seen more reinvention than a cat with nine lives and a flair for the dramatic.
The Ark Ministries, a Christian nonprofit with a heart as wide as Yaquina Bay, first took hold of the building with the kind of hopeful ambition only people of deep faith and good knees possess. For four years, they opened its doors to youth who weren’t always easy to reach — the sort who might otherwise end up on the margins of a town’s attention. They offered not lectures or pamphlets, but music, light, and community. It was loud sometimes, but always full of grace.
There were nights of Art Deco films that smelled of popcorn and old glamour, evenings of ballroom dancing where couples swirled like fog off the ocean, and a gallery of spiritual imagination — like the time artist JT Childs painted the seven days of creation on 4×8 canvases while classical music filled the air like incense. If you’ve never seen Genesis unfold in brushstrokes and baroque, you’ve missed something sacred.
And then came the drums.
Skip Cain, who could make a snare sing and cymbals sparkle, played a concert that shook the walls, the ceiling, and possibly a few seagulls from the roof. The light show alone could’ve summoned the Northern Lights if they’d been in range. It was church, it was concert, it was joy.
Eventually, the Ark Ministries passed the baton — or rather, the lease — to a congregation known as Encounter Church, who became the Ark Bible Church, carrying on the good work for a spell. They later moved just up the hill to the old Baptist church, leaving The Ark quiet again — but only for a time.
Because, like any faithful vessel, The Ark is meant to return.
The Ark Ministries has resumed the lease, hammer in one hand and vision in the other. The remodeling is underway — not just of wood and plaster, but of purpose. The old girl is waking up again, brushing off the dust, getting ready to swing open her doors and say, “Come on in. There’s room for you here.”
Events are in the works — the kind that lift hearts and remind people they’re not alone, not forgotten, not unloved. And always, gently but clearly, there’s the gospel: the good news that love is real, forgiveness is possible, and Jesus, like The Ark, keeps coming back.
So if you find yourself walking the streets of downtown Newport, past salt-stained storefronts and the scent of chowder in the breeze, listen. You just might hear music again — or laughter, or the unmistakable sound of people being reminded that hope, like good theaters and good ministries, doesn’t go out of style.
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