We go to church way out west

Neah Bay Presbyterian Church, Neah Bay, Washington
You could say, “Go West, Young Man” applied to us. Except you'd have to change it to “woman and man.” And the “young” part doesn’t really apply.

Otherwise, Horace Greeley could have been talking right to us this past weekend. As we near the end of our “visit a new church every week” project, we thought it would be fun to mirror the beginning of this adventure. Back in 2015, we visited the furthest north, south, east, and west churches we could find in California. Now we’re visiting the furthest north, south, east, and west churches we can find in Washington state.

So this week, we went as far west as we could (easily) go in Washington state, which was also pretty much the furthest west we could drive in the contiguous United States. And we went to the furthest west church we could find.

On Saturday we drove to Klahowya Campground in the Olympic National Forest to spend the night by the Sol Duc River. It was the last weekend the campground was open for the year, and it was very quiet. We got up early the next morning to drive the hour or so to Neah Bay, which is part of the Makah Reservation. We had an hour before church started, so we drove to the parking lot at the base of the Cape Flattery trail, which took us as far west as we could go. Then we drove back to Neah Bay.

Mindy’s research had found two possible churches: an Assembly of God Church and a Presbyterian Church, both in Neah Bay. We were leaning Presbyterian because we were pretty sure of when the worship service was. When we saw the two churches, which are a block apart, we did some eyeball calculations. It looked like the Presbyterian Church seemed to be a few feet more to the west.

We arrived at 10:30 am and looked at the sign on the side of the church that read Sunday School at 9:30. Some children filed out of the church and got into cars to go home. (We heard later that 12 - 15 kids have been attending Sunday School class, some from families that don’t attend the church.) The sign said the worship service started at 10:45, but when we got inside, Pastor George greeted us and said the service actually started more 11-ish.

Pastor George, sitting at a long table with his laptop, offered coffee and the restroom (after camping with minimal fire and water, Mindy appreciated the hot coffee and I appreciated the flushing). We sat at the table with Pastor George, and as other people came in the room, introduced us all as they sat at the table for a chat.

Some of the women who joined us told us about the history of the church, which for decades was, apart from the Indian Shaker church (unrelated to the Shakers we’d heard of before), the only church in town. They told us that the mural at the front of the sanctuary was financed by women in the church selling cookbooks. We heard about the church’s choir in the 1950’s and ‘60’s (we were urged to visit the local museum, where reel to reel tapes of those choir performances were housed).

One of the grandmothers quoted her granddaughter saying that they need to “pay attention to Pastor George and God” during the worship service. There was speculation that some might not make it to church that morning since the Seahawks were playing the Raiders in London, and the game had already started.

Pastor George mentioned he was disappointed that he hadn’t received more information from the denomination on disaster relief for the recent Florida hurricane. Since that hadn’t come in, he wondered if Mindy and I would be willing to share for their Minute for Missions. (Of course we agreed). By then, it was 11ish, so Pastor George asked the group if we should just go on chatting around the table or should we go to worship? Unanimous agreement on worship.

We sang many of our favorite hymns that morning, with music provided by the playlist on Pastor George’s tablet (“Take My Life,” “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” “Immortal, Invisible” among them). During the Passing of the Peace, there was time for everyone to shake the hand of every other person, and they did. During the Minute for Missions, Mindy and I told how we’ve seen God work in powerful ways through His Church, particularly Vieux Carre Baptist Church in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Pastor George prayed for us, which we greatly appreciated. People shared other needs for the prayer time, which concluded with the Lord’s Prayer. (There was a moment of “Debt” / ”Trespass” confusion. We’ve experienced it other churches, too. Pastor George blamed his Methodist upbringing.) Pastor George prayed for hurricane victims in Florida, the local schools (including the high school football team), the tribal council and state government, and the upcoming elections.

The congregation is following the lectionary in their worship services, with Scripture readings from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Gospels. The Gospel reading (for which we stood) was the story of the rich, young ruler from Mark. Pastor George commented, “That one caught my eye and kicked me in the backside.” He went on to say, “We’ve all had opportunities to give to the poor; sometimes we take them, and sometimes we don’t.”

After church, we had more time to chat around the table, this time with snacks along with the coffee. We couldn’t stay long, though; we had a long drive back to Seattle. Several people wished us well and even mentioned they’d be praying for us.

The Old Testament Scripture from the lectionary that morning was from chapter 23 of the book of Job. Verses 8 & 9 caught my attention, “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.”

I hate to disagree with Job, but we saw God at work in His Church in the east of Washington, and this week we saw it in the west. We trust we’ll see the same in the north and south over the next couple of weeks.

We go to a church in transition

West Side Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington
“Summer is full of comings and goings,” Pastor Shari mentioned early in the morning worship service. The high schoolers were just returning from the MOVE Conference at Biola University in southern California. During the the prayer time, Pastor Shari prayed for people moving into the area. (We moved to West Seattle on the 4th of July, so we appreciated the prayer for us.) But the "going" that was on the mind of most in the congregation that morning (and when we returned for the evening service) was Pastor Shari’s, because this was her last Sunday.

Shari Jackson Monson has been serving as the interim senior pastor at West Side Presbyterian Church for the last two years, but now she’s leaving to serve another Presbyterian Church in the area -- again as an interim. West Side will have a “Bridge pastor” until they’re able to call a new Senior Pastor. I’m not sure how a Bridge pastor differs from a interim pastor, but there you go.

We knew that this was Pastor Shari’s last Sunday before we came, because Mindy had visited the church’s website. She was impressed with how user friendly and informative it was (she particularly liked that the week’s announcements -- this week’s, not last week’s -- were already posted on Saturday).*

Parking is generally at a premium at churches and other businesses in Seattle, so we parked a couple of blocks away. As we walked toward the church, we agreed it looked like a Presbyterian church. It is an attractive brick building with a nice old tree in front (signs asked us not to climb it. We appreciated the warning, because we are often tempted to climb trees).

A line of people stood at the door to greet those entering. A table on our left was set up set up for people to write notes of appreciation to Pastor Shari. Two women behind the welcome center behind the table greeted us, and we chatted with them before going into the sanctuary.

We found our seats on pews near the back, and I noticed a couple of screens in the front that partially covered the carved wood decorations on either side of the platform. Otherwise, the sanctuary seemed typical of a Presbyterian church built in the late 1940s (1948 according to the cornerstone).

Though the message on the screens read, “no signal” at first, that was soon remedied. When the first song was announced, I was surprised it wasn’t projected, but rather found in the hymnal. Frankly, it’s been quite a long time since we sang all the verses in a song from a hymnal accompanied by an organ.

During the greeting/passing of the peace, one of the women sitting behind me said, “I know you’re a visitor.” I wondered how she could tell. I don’t think it was how I was dressed, although I saw older men in coats and ties and younger men in jeans.

The high schoolers reporting on their conference (and the adults who’d accompanied them) wore blue t-shirts. In both the morning and evening services, students shared “messages of hope” from their experience. One young woman talked about singing praise songs with 1600 other students, many who raised their hands as they sang. She said that as a Presbyterian, she wasn’t used to that style of worship, but that the group from West Side soon felt comfortable joining in.

Prior to leading the prayers of the people, Pastor Shari said that on this, her last Sunday, she felt free to confess something. On a Sunday early in her time at West Side, she’d realized she didn’t have a pen or paper to write down the prayer requests that were shared. Thinking quickly, after each request was shared, she asked if another congregant would pray for that request. With her conscience clear, she asked the congregation to do the same thing on this Sunday. As a visitor and stranger, I appreciated being able to share a request anonymously and to know that others are also bringing our request to God.

Pastor Shari said that, as usual, the prayer time would conclude with the Lord’s Prayer and that there were differences in the way people learned that prayer. She said that you couldn’t make a mistake, just pray. (I think I noticed that evening that Pastor Shari began to say “forgive us our trespasses” instead of the traditional Presbyterian “forgive us our debts.” But as she said, it’s all good.)

The morning’s speaker, Jeff Vancil, used to serve with Young Life but is now part of Leadership Development, an organization that runs Prayer Breakfasts. I hadn’t known, until he told us, that the Prayer Breakfast movement had its roots in Seattle when Abraham Vereide (who worked with the poor during the Great Depression) was approached by a rich man. “You do good work with the down and out, have you ever thought of helping the up and out?”

Eventually this movement led to the National Prayer Breakfast, which began in the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower. Other than the State of the Union Address, the National Prayer Breakfast is the largest gathering of elected officials in Washington, D. C. Jeff facilitates such events in Olympia, Washington state’s capital. He said that elected officials from both sides of the aisle leave politics aside as they come together to pray, leading to greater civility in the capital in these uncivil times.

After introducing himself, he spoke on James 4: 1 - 3 (the church has a summer series on the epistle of James). He talked about the great incivility in this culture, and argued that James pointed to the need to acknowledge that we must look to ourselves as the base of such problems, not others. At the conclusion, a woman behind us said, “Wow, what a message!”

The same message was delivered in the morning and evening services. At the conclusion of the morning service there was the installation of the incoming class of deacons and elders. The evening service concluded with communion. The morning service was followed by a reception for Pastor Shari. The evening service was followed by a sandwich dinner. Both services provided a time to worship the Lord and fellowship with His people, and we appreciated both.

*As we mentioned last week, this blog is, like West Side Presbyterian, in a transitional stage because we are in a transitional stage. We plan to keep visiting new churches for the blog, but we’re also trying to find a church we can call home. We’ll try not to make our search the focus of posts, but it’s bound to come up now and then.

We Go to Church and Talk to Friends about Fire

Hope Chapel and Healdsburg Community Church, Healdsburg, CA

First Presbyterian Church and The Redeemed Life Church, Santa Rosa, CA

When we messaged Mark and Lynn Williams about getting together to talk about their experiences during the fires in Sonoma County, Mark responded, “Our church didn’t do much.”

That’s what he wrote, but I knew Hope Chapel Healdsburg had housed eight Foursquare chaplains who’d come to help immediately after the firestorm. Mark and Lynn didn’t think they did anything much because they felt others had done so much more, but they still had a story to tell. Most everyone who was in the area the week of October 8 has a story, and you’re sure to hear something interesting if you say, “Tell me your fire story.”

For fifteen years before 2016’s year-long road trip, Mindy and I lived in Sonoma County. I was born in Santa Rosa and lived just outside it for the first 19 years of my life; most of my family and a lot of friends are still in the area. We decided to visit -- partly to see the damage that been done, but mostly to see how the Church was helping.

We’d gotten to know knew the Williams family through their son and daughter, who'd been part of the youth group at Healdsburg Community Church when I worked in youth ministry there. None of the families at Hope Chapel, the Foursquare church Mark pastors, lost their homes due to the fires. Nonetheless, everyone in Healdsburg knows people in other nearby communities who suffered greatly in the fire. You can’t avoid that knowledge when one out of every twenty homes in Santa Rosa was destroyed by the fires. Roughly 6,700 homes and businesses in the city were lost, and at least 8,400 structures were destroyed in the various fires that swept Northern California during October.

Pretty much everyone, especially those who weren’t directly affected by the fire, wanted to do something to help. Hope Chapel helped arrange for eight chaplains from the Foursquare denomination to come to the area from around the country. They arrived a week after the fires began, establishing three priorities: 1) Create a resource center with food, water, and clothes; 2) Provide support for local pastors; 3) Help the affected community.

At first, authorities were reluctant to accept their help, but by the time people were beginning to be allowed back into neighborhoods that had been destroyed, the chaplains were asked to accompany them to provide support.

Hope Chapel was able to provide space for the chaplains to sleep, but the church doesn't have shower facilities -- so a local gym opened up their facilities. The church fed the chaplains and provided sanctuary where, after long hard days of service, the chaplains (who hadn’t worked together before) could become a team. Some of the chaplains considered Lynn and Mark as surrogate parents.

When Mark said their church hadn’t done much, we thought it just wasn’t so.

While we were in Healdsburg, we also went to the Healdsburg Free Store. You can probably figure out what it is from the name. Clothes, household goods, and personal care items are available for people who’ve lost their belongings in the fires.

We went so we could talk to Andrea Kladder, co-pastor of Healdsburg Community Church. She was volunteering at the store with friends, and we probably shouldn’t have taken her from her work at the store to chat, but we did.

She told us that Healdsburg Community Church, like Hope Chapel, hadn’t had members lose homes in the fires. Still, everyone knew people who had been hurt. She told about two of her daughter’s good friends who’d had to move from their rental because the owner had been burned out of his own home and needed the apartment to live in himself. That family was moving out of the area because housing is now so scarce and even more expensive than it was before.

Healdsburg Community Church opened their doors during the days of the fire (many in Healdsburg were without power, so the church, which did, was a welcome haven). Now they're providing a series of seminars on active listening with a goal of training people to support one another. People recovering from their losses need to tell their stories. Most of us really don’t have much to say to people experiencing great loss, but we all should be able to listen.

On Sunday morning we were able to worship at two churches we’ve written about before; both are, in a sense, home churches for us (as is Healdsburg Community Church).

After the 8:00 am service at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa I was able to talk to senior pastor Dale Flowers who said that 51 families in the congregation and another ten families that were a part of their day care program lost their homes as well. A positive element, though, was the way people are giving. The church has received $120,000 to help families in need (and some of that money came from families who’d lost their homes.)

First Pres housed people who were evacuated from their homes during the fires. The number of people varied, as various geographic areas in the community had evacuation orders imposed and lifted. Dale’s own home was in an evacuation zone, and he slept at the church. One night, the church itself received an advisory evacuation notice (this meant that people should be ready to evacuate at any time, as opposed to a mandatory notice which meant people were to leave the area immediately). Westminster Woods, a Presbyterian camp about 45 minutes away, offered to take people in, but most staying at the church decided they didn’t want to make one more move.

Later Sunday morning, we worshiped at The Redeemed Life Church, which meets in the home of our friends Todd and Heather Towner. Heather had been awake as the fire came closer and closer to their home, which is a few blocks from the Coffey Park subdivision where about 1,500 homes were destroyed. She told us about listening to reports as the fire raced over the hills along the eastern horizon she could see from her son’s bedroom window, then hearing that the fire was on the other side of the freeway a few miles away, then that the flames had crossed the six-lane freeway and entered Coffey Park. They left that night without knowing if they’d have a home to come back to.

When they were able to return home a day or so later, the area was without power, so Todd, who works from home, bought a generator. They found it was also a tool for serving their neighbors by providing a place for cell phone charging. He and Heather learned the names of neighbors they’d never really met. In the last couple of weeks, there have been two neighborhood gatherings, and the Towners trust God will use this tragedy to open doors for ministry.

It was good to see that in this time of great need, Christ’s Church is responding. As He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God was with His people through the fire, and He continues to be present as they help one another rebuild.

We Go to Afternoon Church (or was it evening?)

Grace Clovis Presbyterian Church, Clovis

We don’t hear enough about Amos, one of the minor prophets of the Old Testament. Back in high school, my youth pastor did a few Bible studies with me. First we work through the book of Hebrews, and then we went through the Book of Amos. I remember studying that book with a map.

Amos addresses Israel and tells them of the judgment coming to other nations. My youth pastor Barry pointed out that Amos starts with judgment on Israel’s neighbors -- which must have made the Israelites exclaim, “Preach it! Those heathens deserve your wrath!” Eventually, though, the warnings get a little closer to home, and Amos tells the Israelites that God’s wrath is coming to them because of their sin, wrath like a lion attacking its prey.

As I said, Amos doesn’t seem to get preached often, but when we visited Grace Clovis Presbyterian Church, the congregation was working their way through the prophecy. The sermon focussed on chapter 3, verses 9 -15 the afternoon of our visit.

We went to the 4:00 pm Sunday service, which the bulletin described as the “evening service.” (During the sermon, the pastor said both, “this morning” and “this evening.” The latter was more accurate, but neither seemed quite appropriate for the time of day. It’s an afternoon service in my book.)

We were greeted by Pastor Brad Mills and his wife Carrie. We told them about our project of visiting churches, but mentioned that we had adopted The Bridge in Fresno as our home church for now. They told us they had met at the Bridge (back when it was called Fresno Evangelical Free Church; Carrie referred to it as “EVFree”). They told us Grace Clovis is a PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) church plant, a daughter church of Sierra View Presbyterian Church in Fresno. Grace started as a home Bible study in 2013 and had their first worship service in 2014.  They now have Sunday School at 8:00 am, morning worship at 9:00 am (where they’re working through Peter’s first letter to the Church), and the 4:00 pm service we attended.

Brad and Carrie have been pleased with the growth of the church. We learned that we were visiting on a low attendance day. Carrie mentioned that the night before they’d had a church game night, and a number of people had let her know they wouldn’t make it to the service.

The service began with a call to worship from Psalm 134. Singing led into a prayer time with an opportunity for people to share prayer requests (sometime that doesn’t happen in the morning service because the group tends to be larger).  One prayer request was for a house sale (“Many of you helped with the clean-up, and we are thankful”).  A young man, Chandler, hopes to go on a mission trip in the summer and is looking for wisdom (Japan or Cambodia?). One request was for the new widow who has been a missionary in France with her husband. He passed away suddenly two hours after preaching a sermon, and now she is trying to decide whether to continue to serve in France or to return to the States.

The responsive reading was questions 16,  17, and 18 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism along with their answers.  (I mentioned I don’t hear enough from Amos, but I also don’t hear enough from the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It opens with one of the most profound things ever written outside of Scripture, “What is the chief end of Man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” I love the use of the word “enjoy.”) Brad said, “There is some important doctrine in the confession, but you should look up the Scriptural proofs that go with it.”

Brad’s sermon was titled “A Powerless People.” As a background for the passage, he mentioned some things from earlier chapters that I remember Barry bringing up way back when. The people of Israel were “Amening” the condemnation of their neighbors, but were not pleased when the judgment came to them. The Israelites were called out for what might today be called social justice failings. They were oppressing the poor, seeking their own hedonistic pleasures.

Amos uses the lion as an important symbol for justice. Since he was probably a shepherd, with the attendant worries of lions attacking his sheep, Amos may speak from his own experience when, in chapter 3, he uses rather grisly imagery of “when lions attack.” Because of the predominance of this symbol, Brad used a lion graphic for the sermon series. (Perhaps another reason I appreciate this book is because my brother works with big cats, including lions, through an organization he founded called Project Survival.)

In the sermon, Brad mentioned something he didn’t think we see enough of in the church -- church discipline. “We must be committed to practicing church discipline, but it is practically absent in the evangelical church today. We should be willing to submit to leadership. We need a distinct morality.”

I found this interesting, because one of the more common things we hear when we talk about churches to people in bars to people is that they don’t want to be judged. And we’ve heard horrible stories about people rejected in churches because of the way they dress or the way they look or their life circumstances -- but does that mean there’s no place for discipline or judgment in the Church?

It might be a silly example, but I was thinking of athletes. What if, say, a figure skater said, “I don’t want to be judged. Let me just go out on the ice and do my thing, but no judgments. Still, a medal would be nice.”

That would be absurd.

But perhaps it’s just as absurd for those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ to expect to never be called out for our bad behavior. The people Amos was calling out were really hurting other people, and God wasn’t about to let such injustice slide. I don’t think the people we talk to in the bars would say, “Oh yes, if people are committing acts of violence and stealing from other people, it’s all cool. Don’t make it into a thing.”

It’s a quite different thing for a person to willingly submit to a church for accountability than for people to take it upon themselves to judge others.

Church discipline is not an easy or fun topic, but it’s important, and I was glad to hear Brad addressing it.

After church we talked to Justin and Jenny (whose son Chandler asked for prayer during the worship service). I asked what brought them to the church.

Justin said that they had moved from Mississippi last summer, and they came to the church because he already knew Brad -- they’d been in seminary together. Still, Justin said, “If I didn’t agree with the direction that Brad was taking the church, we would still be friends, but I’d go somewhere else.”

Jenny expressed her gratitude for people in the church who had helped them when they moved to the community.  “They are the nicest group of folks. They helped us set up our home. That’s the hands of Christ.”  

“It’s a community,” Justin added.

We were happy to be a part of the community, if only for one afternoon. Or evening. The time of day really doesn’t matter, I guess. What matters is that this church seems to be a place where God is at work.

Statistics

Service Length: 1 hour 5 minutes

Sermon Length: 33 minutes

Visitor Treatment: We were the first to arrive, so we stood out a bit. A number of people greeted us as they came in.

Followup by Tuesday Morning: None

Our Rough Count: 34

Probable Ushers’ Count: 40

Snacks: none

Musicians: keyboards (woman)

Songs: "MIghty to Save"

"God of Grace:

"Christ is Mine Forevermore"

"I Sing the Mighty Power of God"

Distance to Church: 5 miles

Open WiFi: no

Tie/Suit Count: none

Church Website: graceclovis.org

Thanks to Cate Mills, who Mindy asked to take three pictures of important things about the church.