We Go to Church and Talk to Strangers about Fires

Samaritan’s Purse

The Bridge Church, Santa Rosa, California

We’d already decided to spend last weekend in Santa Rosa when Mindy started looking for places where we could volunteer while we were there. It’s a good thing that she had a hard time finding a place that would let us help -- there are many organizations working on many projects, but most had more than enough volunteers for the Saturday we were available.

Eventually she remembered that Samaritan’s Purse, the international relief organization, was working through The Bridge Church in Santa Rosa (not connected with The Bridge Fresno), and she applied for Saturday morning training and work with other one-day volunteers. Due to a breakdown in marital communications (I’m sure it only happens to us), I had given up on volunteering and arranged for us to meet friends for lunch.

Nevertheless, Mindy went to the training early Saturday morning, if only to apologize that she couldn’t go out with the groups. She got permission sit in on the orientation that prepared volunteers for the work they’d be doing that day.

The group watched a video that prepared them to work at sites where homes had so recently been. They were reminded to wear protective gear, which would be provided on-site. They were trained to avoid nails and to be considerate of the homeowners, who would also be on the property. Then they were assigned to groups to go to the various area sites. Mindy had noticed a few people with The Bridge Church t-shirts, and when she asked if they were part of the church, she found herself talking with Eli Contreras, the church’s worship and young adults pastor. A few minutes later, that group was excited to find out they’d be working at the home of friends from The Bridge Church.

After the volunteers left to go to their work sites, Mindy came back to fetch me. We drove into the hills of the Fountaingrove area on the northeast side of Santa Rosa, where we were introduced to one of the property’s owners who was looking at what had been saved and what had been lost to the fire.

The house was gone except for a few stone walls, but the tree house in an oak tree was fine. Their beehives had survived the fire, but the smoke might have weakened the bees that were left, allowing yellowjackets to invade and take over the hives. She graciously allowed us to take pictures of the work on her property (Samaritan’s Purse requires volunteers to get permission for photos, and common courtesy does too).

Mindy introduced me to Eli, who was unrecognizable in Tyvek coverall and breathing mask. As we watched, Keith, the site supervisor from Samaritan’s Purse, advised people to keep away from the area around a damaged wall. That area would be cordoned off to prevent accidental injury.

People were hauling metal conduit to a pile for recycling, and everyone seemed to be in good (but not jovial) spirits. Though we were in a beautiful hilltop on a beautiful day, a sense of loss hung over the morning. Later, when some of the debris had been hauled away, the group expected to help the owners sift through the ruins of the house for belongings that might have survived the firestorm. They also hoped to catch sight of the family's cat, who'd been missing since the night of the fire.

That night, when we went to the Saturday evening worship service at The Bridge Church, we couldn’t help noticing the big Samaritan’s Purse trailer parked in the lot. We heard that the trailers had been built for NASCAR and were equipped with tools and shop materials as well as supplies for use on disaster sites.

The Bridge Church meets at the Santa Rosa Alliance Church on Fulton Road (near, but outside one of the fire evacuation areas). The Bridge was a two-location church, with one congregation meeting in the Larkfield neighborhood of northeast Santa Rosa at a Seventh Day Adventist School. The congregation had kept the equipment they set up every week in a trailer stored in the school’s parking lot, and the school was destroyed in the fire. The church assumed all their equipment was lost along with the meeting site, but when, after the fires, they were allowed back onsite, they found their trailer in perfect condition by a wall on the edge of the parking lot (we saw the trailer in the Alliance Church parking lot that evening).

The Saturday evening service began promptly at 5:00 pm with music followed by a greeting time (with a timer), more singing, then the sermon. Pastor Billy Andre was beginning a series, “Different,” on the Apostle Peter’s first letter.

In his introduction, Billy mentioned that the letter was written to a church that was enduring great persecution under the Emperor Nero (famed for fiddling while Rome burned), and the Bible verses that especially struck me were from I Peter 1 -- the quite relevant verses 6 & 7: “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Billy said people of Sonoma County are suffering immensely, but not only from the fires. As is true in any time, in any place, people have struggles with health, relationships, and finances. These trials, he said, are a test of our faith, but our God is a God who can redeem painful situations.

The message was perhaps more powerful because Pastor Andre, like many in his congregation, is going through a trial of his own. His family’s home was destroyed in the firestorm, and they’re staying in their fourth residence in a month. He told about going to where his home used to be to sift through the ashes. He and his wife hoped, more than anything else, to find their original wedding rings, which had been in a dish on their dresser.

They did find them. They also found something that surprised them: a picture of Jesus. It wasn’t from a book they’d owned, and they had no idea where it came from, but there it was in the ashes where their shed had been: a reminder that God was with them.

The service closed with the song  “I Have This Hope” by Tenth Avenue North, which includes the lyrics, “I have this hope in the depth of my soul: in the flood or the fire, You’re with me and You won’t let go.”

Many of my friends lost their homes in the fires, including Mike, who I've known since elementary school. I remember biking to his house to hunt with BB guns...I accidentally shot him once. This week, his wife Carol posted on Facebook, "From this day, we move forward. Samaritan's Purse showed up today with a team of twenty people to help us sift. Beauty from ashes. God has a good plan for our family."

I trust also that God has a good plan for the people of Sonoma County, and I'm grateful that Samaritan's Purse -- and the churches in the community -- are working with them to help find it out.

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 Church (but is it Really a Church?) before a Meal

Redwood Gospel Mission, Santa Rosa, California

Our trip last year, where we visited a worship service in every state, could have been completed so much more quickly -- perhaps in two months rather than a year -- if we’d mostly gone to places like Redwood Gospel Mission. Last year, each state required a week since we generally attended Saturday or Sunday services, but RGM has a worship service every evening at 6:00 pm.

Technically, one could argue that Redwood Gospel Mission is not a church. The people at the Mission would not call themselves a church. During the worship service, worshipers are encouraged to attend a church. But RGM certainly has worship services, so if we said that we would visit a worship service (rather than a worship service in a church), we might have found missions throughout the country, and the trip would have been a lot quicker. (Still, we have no regrets.)

When we arrived at the Mission a few minutes before the evening worship service, we saw an ambulance outside. Inside the building,I heard people speculating about who was in the ambulance and the reason the person was in it. No one seemed to really know, but speculation abounded.

As we looked around the chapel, we noticed a few women, but men filled almost all the seats in the chapel. I noticed a few men on their phones, and the man in front of us was looking at a local weekly. Christmas decorations were hanging up near the ceiling.

A minute or two before the scheduled time, a man stood in front of the group and quickly read through a list of announcements (among them, the fact that there’s a 6:00 pm worship service at the mission every day of the year, followed by the 7:00 dinner; he also announced a 6:30 am service followed immediately by breakfast). He also let the group know about the Mission’s drug and alcohol recovery program, the Manna Home ministry for women and children, and shelter availability for the night.

Someone led a prayer of thanksgiving for the day’s lovely weather and for the lovely mission. The two men on stage with guitars introduced themselves as Tim and Steve, who attend two different churches that meet in the same building (The Bridge and Alliance Christian Fellowship). Redwood Gospel Mission has a rotation of churches that lead worship for their evening service.

A few technical difficulties with the sound needed to be worked through (“Your mic’s not working yet!” “Got it!” “Karen, can you turn down the guitars a bit?”), but they carried on with a bit of static coming through the system. Tim said, “If we can lift God up and praise Him, it’s a blessing to everyone.” Almost every comment and song was met with scattered “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” from the crowd.

Tim introduced a Bob Dylan song by reminding us that we all need to make some choices (“It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody.”) Someone praised his singing with a loud “Brave-Oh!”

As we sang, a man came from behind us and tousled the hair of the man looking at the newspaper in front of us. The man responded good naturedly. A different man went to the front of the chapel and raised his clenched fist triumphantly for no reason we could discern.

Karen, who had been doing the sound, came forward to give the message. I heard a man behind me make a crude remark that would have more often be heard in a strip club than a chapel, but fortunately he quit after that.

Karen initially had problems with the sound system and also apologized for a scratchy throat. She apparently had been to the Mission before, saying, “I see a lot of faces I’ve known for a long time.”  She read a bit from the Robert Frost poem about the road less traveled, drawing a parallel with Matthew 7:15 where Jesus talked about the wide road leading to destruction and the narrow road to salvation.

She spoke of the many choices we make in our day to day life, but said the most crucial choice was whether we would accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, a choice between eternal life and eternal condemnation. She quoted Scripture demonstrating our need for God’s forgiveness for our sins that condemn us to death. She told the story of a California governor who offered clemency to a convict on death row. The convict refused the reprieve and went to his death. She said we have the same choice about whether to accept God’s offer of life. (Side note: Mindy wasn't able to verify this story)

She closed with an offer to pray the sinner’s prayer accepting God’s gift of salvation. “Close your eyes and say these words in your heart,” she said, but many in the chapel repeated her words of contrition and request for forgiveness out loud. “If you prayed that prayer, you are a new creation,” Karen said as she closed.

People stirred, getting ready to go into the meal. “Women and children first” was repeated by several people, and it seemed to be a regular prelude to forming the line to the dining room.

We went in to eat with the crowd, hoping to engage in conversation but almost everyone was  much more intent on clearing their very full plates rather than talking. (I did hear a man at another table say, “I have the munchies from hell; if anyone doesn’t want anything on your plate, it’s going in my pockets, somehow.”)

A few days later, I went without Mindy to the 6:30 am Bible study that preceded breakfast. On my way to the Mission, I saw many people walking from the freeway underpass (where they had spent the night) to the warmth of the Mission.

Before the service there was gossip about a rumor that people from the nearby shopping mall were taking pictures of the homeless that might be used to evict folks. Someone said the photographers might be coming to the services, which led one woman to respond, “You don’t have to be homeless to come to church here.” As in the evening service, the seats were pretty well filled, and there was a greater percentage of women.

A leader read a devotion from The Daily Bread and then asked if anyone had any Scripture to share. A woman shared an extended portion from Isaiah, a man shared from John 15 (“I am the vine and you are the branches”), and another man shared a quote from Joyce Myers.

People were then dismissed for breakfast, again with the admonition, “Women and children first”.

During our 2016 journey to every state, we went to a number of missions along the way. Though most of those places wouldn’t call themselves “churches,” at those places and at Redwood Gospel Mission, we certainly saw the Church at work.

Statistics

Evening Service / Morning Service

Service Length: 59 minutes / 15 minutes

Sermon Length: 17 minutes / none

Visitor Treatment: No special recognition of visitors, but there was a time for people to greet those around them.

Followup by Tuesday Morning: none (no attendance record)

Our Rough Count: 47 / 50

Probable Ushers’ Count: none

Snacks: spagetti, fruit salad, green salad, French bread, green beans, cupcakes, pie, milk, water /didn’t stay for breakfast

Musicians: acoustic guitars (2 men) / none

Songs: “Our God”

“Hear our Praises”

“Gotta Serve Somebody” (solo)

“Mighty to Save”

“Cornerstone”

“Revelatation Song”

“Lord, in Your Name we Lift up our Hands”

“How Marvelous, How Wonderful”

“Listen to our Hearts”

Miles to Church: 2

Church Website: srmission.org

WiFi Availability: none

Tie/Suit Count: 0 / 0

Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa

The Sunday after Christmas Day is traditionally a morning of sparse attendance in churches, but when we entered the sanctuary at 9:10 a.m. for the 9:15 a.m. service and no one was there...Well, we thought something might be amiss. Another person entered the building and said to us, "Did you see the 9:15 time on the internet as well?" Fortunately, someone else came and told us that the 9:15 and 11:15 had been combined into a 10 a.m. service for that morning, but we were welcome to join others for coffee. We instead took the time to run home to change the laundry.

Back at ten, there were pews open to choose from, but the sanctuary was inhabited, mostly with older folks, but also a couple of families with kids. The priest began the service with greetings and informed us that it would be a special service of Lessons and Carols. "Usually," he said, "the Carols and Lessons don't include Communion, but we're patching it on. Or rather, I should say, we're patching Carols and Lessons on to Communion."

I should say something about the church architecture, which is gorgeous. A flyer included in a bag of welcoming materials (with mini Snickers - score!) gives information about the art in the church and the church building itself. The congregation began in 1861, but building was begun on the present location in 1872. Though Ripley's Believe It Or Not immortalized the Church of One Tree in Santa Rosa, Incarnation's original structure was built with two redwood trees. In 1885 the church was quartered, drawn apart and enlarged, and then survived the 1906 earthquake. The church building is the oldest church structure in continuous use in Santa Rosa. One of those uses is ministry and meals to the homeless, including breakfast every Sunday morning before the first worship service.

It goes without saying (but apparently not, because here I am saying it), that it was appropriate and cool that we were celebrating the Incarnation at the church so named.

I was familiar with the choice of Scriptures, since they were pretty much the ones used at the Christmas Eve services I attended at First Presbyterian growing up. Something I've noticed about the reading from Genesis is that people always seem to chuckle appreciatively when Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the Serpent for the Fall. Everyone relates to the rebellion that made the Incarnation necessary.

I was struck by how many of the Carols we sang were of the variety that set Jesus' birth in the setting of a snowy European village (such as "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "The Snow Lay on the Ground") but another Carol was quite obviously set in Canada. "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime" includes such lyrics as "Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found, a ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round" and "The Chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt". Fortunately, the theology of these Carols is far better than the seasonal and geographic details.

All the Carols were sung from the Hymnal accompanied by the organ. (Except "O Come All Ye Faithful." It was played on the organ during communion and people began to hum and then spontaneously sing.) I enjoyed most all the Carols, but a note for what it's worth, "Go Tell It on the Mountain" is not at its best accompanied only by organ sung primarily by Caucasians.

This was the second Sunday in a row without a sermon, which was okay by Mindy. I'll share her dark secret -- which readers of this blog should probably be aware of -- she doesn't like sermons. Her father preaches, and her husband preaches, and she claims to enjoy and profit from both of our sermons (it seems best for family comity to believe this and not dig too deeply into the matter). But she often gets restless during the sermons of others, even other pastors she loves. But Scripture reading and singing bring her unending delight.

I'm always torn when churches have "the Passing of the Peace". Only saying "Peace be with you" to those around you seems rather impersonal at times. But as church pilgrims, knowing we won't return the next week, impersonal sometimes suits us best.

  

Service Length:                       1 hour 5 minutes

Sermon Length:                      No sermon

Visitor Treatment:                   During announcements near the end of the service, the rector came into the body of the sanctuary, asked first-time visitors to raise hands and gave each a bag with candy and information about the church

Our Rough Count:                  60

Probable Ushers' Count:         70

Snacks:                                    Coffee, tea, cookies, pie, yogurt pretzels, crackers with hummus, whole loaves of bread (seemingly available to take home)

Songs:

"Angels from the Realms of Glory"

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

"Comfort, Comfort Ye My People"

"Lo, How a Rose e'er Blooming"

"Twas in the Moon of Wintertime"

"The Snow Lay on the Ground"

"Of the Father's Love Begotten"

"Go Tell It on the Mountain"

-- Dean