Mindy Goes to a Wedding

The Woodard Wedding at Farm Kitchen, Poulsbo, Washington

Last year, we thought it would be good if, in addition to going to a church in every state, we could attend a wedding and a funeral., since those two events frequently take place in a church.

When my mom died rather unexpectedly, we returned to Indiana for her memorial service, and Dean wrote about it. But we weren’t able to attend any weddings (though at least two of our hosts got married after we visited), so we couldn’t write about them.

This year, we were invited to our nephew’s wedding near Seattle. As it happened, the wedding didn’t take place in a church, but it was decidedly a Christian worship service. There were prayers, a sermon, worship songs, and the bride and groom shared communion. I think it’s fair to think of this particular wedding celebration as a worship service of the Church even if it wasn’t technically in a church.

In lieu of the usual statistics (since taking notes at the wedding might have been a bit tacky), here’s a dozen or so things that seem to be true about weddings and church services:

1. There will probably be some way to show you were there

2. Snacks are appreciated. Coffee is especially appreciated

3. Somebody is really glad you're there

4. There will probably be a prayer. Possibly lots of prayers

5. It's likely that not everybody will take communion

6. Somebody should make you feel welcome

7. Children add to the fun

8. Dancing may or may not be encouraged

9. There will probably be flowers. Possibly lots of flowers

10. You're likely to sit with people you know

11. There will probably be music. Possibly lots of music

12. Somebody will preach a sermon

13. And sometimes, there are games

About those Las Vegas Weddings

"So, do people have a choice about whether to have a religious or secular wedding ceremony?" I asked the woman at Cupid's Wedding Chapel.

"Well, we're not a church. We have a variety of people who do services for us that are licensed by the state to perform weddings. They have all kinds of backgrounds."

So I took that as a "No," I guess.

For some reason, people choose to have weddings at the "chapels" rather than the courthouse a few blocks away. The chapels often look architecturally like churches but they don't have crosses or Bibles. They often have doves, though. Maybe not Holy Spirit doves, but doves.

Many of the casinos have wedding chapels, too. People are even married at the Harley Davidson Showroom.

You hear about young people eloping to Vegas. You hear about people getting drunk and married in Vegas (see The Hangover... on second thought, don't.) Sometimes you hear about celebrities getting married in Vegas, commencing three days to three weeks of matrimonial bliss.

There's also the story of my parents, who lived in Los Angeles and didn't think they could afford a formal wedding. They decided to get married in Las Vegas and took my mom's parents along (my grandfather's only vacation).

They went to A Wee Kirk o' the Heather Wedding Chapel (as seen in at least one major motion picture). The officiant at their wedding invited them to come to his church the next day. He introduced them at the worship service as the first couple that had taken him up on his invitation.

You know these Las Vegas weddings never last. Theirs lasted only a little over fifty years.

La Verne United Methodist Church

 We've been featuring films used as locations for movies, and as a public service we've been highlighting false expectations one might have if you visit these churches assuming life is just like it is in the movies.

This Sunday we visited La Verne United Methodist Church, which was used for the final scenes of the classic 1967 satire, "The Graduate." If you've seen the film, be aware of these three things:

1) Weddings aren't always in progress. The wedding scene from "The Graduate" is iconic, so much so that two other films used this same church to recreate the scene ("Wayne's World 2" and "Bubble Boy"). The church acknowledges this part of its past in its literature and with posters of the films in the office. The church is often used for weddings. The building and grounds are quite lovely, so I can understand people wanting to use the site for that reason, but if they're looking to recreate the wedding from any of these films, all things considered, that's pretty odd. However that may be, on a Sunday morning, worship will be in progress rather than a wedding.

2) Probably no one will interrupt the service banging on the glass window at the back of the sanctuary. Anyone who's seen the film remembers Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) interrupting the wedding, knocking on the glass in the balcony. That balcony is there, but it's used as a baby room. Some visitors have been disappointed to find that the outdoor staircase to the balcony in the film was set up by the film company and then removed.

3) It's not just WASPs who worship there. In the film, Benjamin's family and all of their friends are well-to-do repressed Caucasians. (One of the best jokes in the film, intended or unintended, is Dustin Hoffman's sticking out like a sore thumb Jewishness.) The real congregation reflects the community with a variety of ethnicities. Obviously, there are places in the country where reflecting a community makes a congregation monochrome. But it is nice though, to see a congregation living out Galatians 3:28.

Now let me deal with a different expectation. There are times when we visit a church that's attended by people we know. There are times we visit churches we've read about and researched. At those times we know what we're getting into. But there are times when something brings us to a church we know little or nothing about ahead of time. Frankly, at such times, our expectations are low.

About all we knew about this church was that scene from "The Graduate," so our hopes weren't high. We tried to do a bit of online research and could only find the directions and a membership number from the Methodist denominational website. Our oldest son came along with us (he's in his twenties), so we told him, "We have no idea what this service will be like, but it's Methodist, so it shouldn't go much over an hour." And the service lasted about an hour. And it was a joyful time of worship.

Hope rose upon arrival, when we saw young people waiting outside the church. Especially with my son along, we were hoping the church wouldn't be in a place with only gray hair. I'm sorry if that sounds ageist, but it is sad at times going to a church primarily consisting of seniors. One wonders how long the church will last. I was happy to a number of children and youth go forward for the "Time for Young Disciples" (aka Children's Sermon).

Background music tracks were used for the opening choruses, which were lively. The worship team had practiced with the tracks (it is obvious when such practice doesn't take place). I was happy we sang "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" on this Sunday before Thanksgiving. ("We Gather Together" is my favorite Thanksgiving hymn, but we sang my second favorite, so I was thankful).

There was an open time of sharing joys and concerns for prayers, one of the great benefits of a smaller congregation. The sermon was one of the shortest we've heard visiting church, but it was a solid bit of teaching on "Christ the King" on Christ the King Sunday (the last Sunday of the church calendar). At the conclusion of the service everyone stood and joined hands in a circle around the sanctuary for a final song and benediction.

La Verne Methodist Church was founded in 1887 and, as their pastor, David Camphouse wrote in this month's newsletter, the church has succeeded "by word of mouth, telling the story of Jesus Christ from one generation to the next." I trust they will continue to do so.

Statistics:
Service Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Sermon Length: 7 minutes
Visitor Treatment: several people greeted us when we arrived outside the church; a member of the trustee board asked why we were taking so many pictures (she was friendly about it, but concerned because others weren't coming in for worship while we were photographing). The "passing of the peace" greeting time took about five minutes, and a number of people approached us since we were visitors. There was a visitor information form in the bulletin and in the guest packet (containing information about the church, its history, and various ministries). We were encouraged to stay for the fellowship/snack time after the worship service.
Followup by Tuesday Morning: none
Our Rough Count: 60
Probable Ushers' Count: 75

Snacks: spaghetti, banana/cranberry bread, brownies, coffee, sodas, iced tea and apple juice
Musicians: The worship team had 1 man on drums with two men and two women singing. The choir consisted of six men and four women, plus the choir director (a man) who also accompanied on the piano. For the choir's main song, there was also a man playing flute
Songs: "Rise Up"
"I Delight in You"
"Your Beloved"
"Come, Ye Thankful People Come" (with choir introduction)
"Indescribable" (choir anthem with flute solo)
"For the Beauty of the Earth"
"Doxology"
"Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past"
Miles to place: 480
Total California Miles: 17,043
Church website: none

We go to church in Illinois (with a bonus seminary story!)

Geneseo Evangelical Free Church, Illinois

To indicate how close we’ve been to Pastor Steve Palm of Geneseo Evangelical Free Church, I’ll note that he came with us on our honeymoon.

Well, actually, it was  just the first couple of minutes of our honeymoon. Steve was one of my dorm mates in seminary and a groomsman in our wedding. My car (a Plymouth Duster) had been decorated (vandalized), and the back seat stuffed with crumpled newspaper and a hanging rack of clothes. As Mindy and I drove away after our wedding reception, we didn’t know that Steve had hidden beneath those crumpled newspapers. About half a block away from the church, I asked Mindy, “Where should we go first?”

Mindy asked, “Where do you want to go?”

And a voice from the back seat called out, “I don’t know, where do you want to go?” The car might have swerved a little.

So where we went was back to the church to throw Steve out. We all recovered and nobody was injured.

After seminary, Steve spent most of his years on the East Coast, and we were on the West Coast, and during the next thirty years we only got together one time. Through those years, Steve served churches in his native New York, in Florida, and now in Illinois. This visit was a happy reunion.

He’s been in Geneseo now for two years, and I spoke to a woman named Judy after a service and she said, “We love him! He’s such a wonderful fit here. I love him.”

Geneseo is a small farm town, hours from Chicago. Mindy overheard women discussing men who would miss worship that morning due to the local tractor show. (John Deere headquarters are not far away.) One would think a transition like this would be difficult for a native of Long Island who’s never shaken his Eastern accent, but Steve and the Ev Free Church of Geneseo have something much more important than geography in common; they share a love of God’s Word.

When I asked Steve about the church’s strengths, he immediately mentioned the wealth of good teachers in the church. Mindy and I (along with Steve’s wife, Cindy) attended an adult Sunday School class, and appreciated the lesson taught by Carl, one of several Adult Bible Fellowship (Sunday School) teachers whom Steve praised as quite able.

During snack time before Adult Bible Fellowship, we talked with Linda, Jeff, and Shelly. When I asked what they liked about the church, they all spoke of Steve’s preaching. Linda and Jeff talked about another church they’d attended, where the speaker might focus on a book he had just read or his own thoughts. They appreciated that Steve always spoke from the Scriptures. Linda mentioned that Steve always “threw in some Greek or Hebrew in a sermon.” Shelly said she also appreciated the fellowship found in the church, especially in the Sunday School classes and small groups.

We found the people in the church to be quite friendly, greeting us warmly even when they didn’t know we were friends of Steve and Cindy’s. (If they did know Steve, they wanted to know if the stories he told from seminary days were true. I’m not sure if it was a help or hinderance to Steve’s ministry to confirm the validity of his stories.)

We talked with Debby, the church’s Children’s Ministry Coordinator, who’s also part of the team working redesign the church interior. She was concerned that the room for fellowship and coffee was nearly invisible to people walking from the entrance to the sanctuary or children’s classrooms. She told us,  “People who attended the church for some time were unaware of the snacks available between services.” (And about those snacks. Way back in February in Kansas, we’d heard from a young man that we must try the breakfast pizza from the service station, Casey’s. Frankly, the very idea of service station pizza, let alone “breakfast pizza” frightened us. At GEFC, someone brought Casey’s breakfast pizza, with egg and bacon toppings, for snack time, and it was quite good.)

Debby said they want to tear down walls to reconfigure the lobby area of the church so people will feel more free to stay with their coffee and chat. (I’m not a coffee drinker -- Mindy is -- but this year I’ve come to see more and more the value of providing those opportunities for community before and after Sunday morning services.)

Geneseo has  “traditional” and “contemporary” worship services, but aside from a couple more hymns than choruses in one service than the other, the services were not very different. (There might usually be a greater difference, but Nate, the worship leader, was away on his honeymoon and the music was led by Nate’s father.)

We appreciated the time of open prayer in both services. Steve introduced the time by mentioning the previous day’s bombings in New York and mentioning the importance of the church being led by God’s Spirit rather than fear. A time was opened for congregational prayer. One woman prayed, “Father, help us to love our enemies, being as Jesus said, ‘wise as serpents and as harmless of doves.’”

The message , “Confronting Sin in Someone you Respect,” was the first in a series on “Hard Conversations.” As we’ve visited bars this year, a chief concern is that churches will be “judgmental.” This is a completely valid concern, and we know it was Jesus’ concern as well.

On the other hand, we’ve been to (for instance) an AA meeting where people have tell their story of being rescued when people “intervened” in their lives. I thought Steve addressed the tension well when he said, “There is a theological term for those who enjoy confronting people with their sin. That term is ‘jerk.’”

Steve used the story of 2 Samuel 12: 1 - 15, when the prophet Nathan confronted King David about the king’s sin in sleeping with a soldier’s wife and then orchestrating that soldier’s death in battle. In our culture, we might describe what Nathan did as “speaking truth to power,” but Steve pointed out that initially, Nathan tried a more gentle approach with David with the use of a parable. When that didn’t work, he pointed out David’s sin to him directly.

Steve referred to Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend,” and mentioned that the church had conferences for both women and men coming that would focus on that theme. In the church, we do need each other’s help to deal with our failings, but Steve rightly pointed out the need to do so with love and grace. He mentioned a friend of his who was abusing alcohol and had a greatly strained marriage. Because Steve and others intervened, his friend is sober and his marriage is strong.

He ended the message with the “Paul Harvey, the rest of the story” version of the David/Nathan interaction. Steve pointed out that Nathan was able to go on as a friend and advisor to David. Tellingly, David would later name a son after Nathan.

Those friendships centered on truth and grace are important. I’m glad that we have such a friendship with Steve that continues.

Bonus seminary-related story!

While in Illinois, we were able to see another seminary friend, Brad Gundlach. I was able to participate in a quite different kind of church event. On Monday nights, Brad gets together with various folks from his church, St. Mark’s Lutheran in Lindenhurst, for ping pong. They’ve been playing for years, and on the night I visited, we played with David (the host), Peter, and Norb. Norb is in his early 90’s and can still beat most comers, able to return a volley to any corner of the table at will. Sometimes the pastor of the church shows up, and Brad’s son, Nathan, was a regular member of the Ping Pong Fraternity until he left for college recently.

Brad spoke of his appreciation for having his son being exposed to these good older men in the church, and he enjoyed the opportunities to play with and against his son, in such a safe and friendly atmosphere. (And just so you know, Norb had no problem whipping me in a game.)

Statistics (Traditional service/Contemporary service)

Service Length: 1 hour 1 minute/ 1 hour 8 minutes

Sermon Length: 34 minutes / 41 minutes

Visitor Treatment: Guests were welcomed at the beginning of the service and encouraged (as everyone at the worship service was) to fill out the Connection card in the bulletin. First time visitors were to drop their cards at the Welcome/Information desk (and be given a gift). We were greeted by several people at each service and during the fellowship time before and after the Sunday School hour.

Followup by Tuesday Morning: none (we were staying with the pastor and family, though, and they cared for us until we left on Monday)

Our Rough Count: 105 / 110

Probable Ushers' Count: 125 / 130

Snacks: coffee and decaf, hot water for tea or hot chocolate; breakfast casserole, fruit, yogurt, donuts, various other pastries, and Casey’s breakfast pizza

Musicians: violin (man), electric piano (man), vocal (3 women) / vocal (2 women), electric piano (man), acoustic guitar (woman), electric guitar (man)

Songs: Traditional Service

“Love Lifted Me”

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”

“10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)”

“How Great Thou Art/How Great is our God”

Contemporary Service

“Hosanna”

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”

“10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)”

“How Great Thou Art/How Great is our God”

Miles to church: 2

Miles from start: 37,347

Total 2016 Miles: 37,051

Church website: http://www.gefc.org/