By Gail Kerr 

11/26/01

Lebanon, TN -- She calls it the "Disassembly of God." Soon, she'll call it home. "Welcome to my church," Karlen Evins said. "Yes, it's true. I'm insane. This is not for the faint of heart."

You know her as the thoughtful, prepared co-host of Teddy Bart's Round Table, every weekday from 7-9 a.m. on WAMB 1160 AM. The show is now also on TV every afternoon, from 4-6 p.m. on Channel 10 in Davidson County only.

But those who count Karlen as a friend know she isn't going to leave this world with a eulogy that says she was predictable. The woman raises goats in Forest Hills, for crying out loud. She's getting a master's degree in divinity at Vanderbilt. That she would buy herself a church shouldn't be a surprise.

About a decade ago, Karlen started thinking she'd like to have a modest cabin she could retire to every weekend to buy a little silence in her talk show world. Her daddy was a "country banker" in Lebanon, "so I know about foreclosure," she said. "I'm a girl who has bought everything I've ever owned through foreclosure."

She told her dad to start keeping his eyes out for something she could move and renovate. One day, while driving through Nutbush in West Tennessee with a friend, she spotted this little church. It was built in 1917, with an authentic bell.

It looked tiny from the road, and had the old-fashioned two matching front doors, back in the days when men and women didn't share a church entrance.

Karlen wanted it. Bad.

She started trying to find out who owned the church. Turns out there were two surviving members, but one had had a stroke. The other, she couldn't find. So she contacted the state presbytery.

"It took 18 months," she said. "Buying it wasn't the expensive part. Moving it was the expensive part."   Buildings can be moved. But this one didn't look so tiny when it came time to load her up. Karlen decided to take the church apart, load the parts onto a tractor-trailer and put them back together. Her uncle offered a spot on his land. Lebanon is where she grew up.

"If someone had told me what I would have had to do when I started, I wouldn't have done it," she said.

That's hard to believe when you go visit the church with her. She goes a million miles an hour, all blue jeans and bright pink blouse and smiles. A cell phone in one hand, she fastens her seat belt with the other while talking oak with a contractor.

"It's the church in the wildwood," she jokes, bouncing out of her SUV and unlocking the door. "Listen to how quiet it is."

The church is precious, with arched, Gothic-style windows and a stone foundation. Karlen's hobby is making stained glass, and she is doing some of the windows herself. The The hand-carved church pews are becoming window seats -- some are going to be gifts to her family.

"I've got church pews coming out my ying yang," she jokes.

Far from a humble little cabin, Karlen has decided to live full-time in the church when it is done. She's added a garage, a stained-glass studio, a balcony and loft bedroom, and a little kitchen, all under a glowing pine ceiling.

"It does have a sweet spirit," she said. "The feel is special. The people who loved it are on the other side saying, 'Someone loves our church.'"

And Teddy Bart might better think about setting up a Lebanon remote.

"After it's done," Karlen said, "I may hole up and never come out."

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