slipping further and further away

The town that Advent Hill Baptist Church is located in is not much more cheery than the church itself. Gloomy, soot covered, and full of crumbing structures, it is like so many small towns defined by industries that have collapsed - poor, and losing their young population to other areas with better economic prospects. The buildings are a visible indicators of an inability to create a new identity or purpose, and with every year of neglect the work that would be needed to rehabilitate the area grows more unmanageable. It is a sort of tar pit, a rotting borough that people still live in even though its hope for salvation is slipping further and further away.