Blaine Detwiler, Lakeview
This summer, we at Lakeview decided to do something we had never done in our 50 year history as a congregation. We decided not to meet together. For one Sunday in June we decided not meet at our meetinghouse. While there have been times when snow made this decision for us, this time we made the decision not to meet. Therefore, on Sunday morning, June 28th, I posted a note on our front door that read: “We are ‘not in the house’ today.”
Where the inspiration to do a “Church Day Out” came from we are not entirely sure.
Gilberto Flores (former Mennonite Church USA denominational minister) may have had something to do with it. At our 2007 Franconia Conference Assembly Gilberto told us the chairs in our meetinghouses ought to face the doors because that is where the church “goes.” He told us that when he showed up to church on his first Sunday at first assignment as a pastor no one was there to hear him preach. Church members were in the streets and he had to go there to find his congregation. I think Gilberto is an undercover agent of the Holy Spirit.
Jeff Wright is another culprit. Hired by Franconia Conference as a consultant for the Vision and Finance Plan Team meetings, he kept pulling his devotional material from the book of Acts. In the book of Acts the church is constantly on the move…and it began to seem as though we were not moving much. I think Jeff may be an instigator of the Holy Spirit.
And then there is Krista Ehst who kept sending us these Post-Christendom reports from her internship in East London. In her blog she wrote that her church took one Sunday a month, one Sunday every month, to be “helping about” and “connecting with” the neighborhood. I think of Krista as a Holy Spirit spy. So let the record show that on June 28, 2009 Lakeview Mennonite Church did not meet.
However a group did gather at the gazebo in the center of New Milford. From there they dispersed in “twos” walking about, praying silently with their eyes open.
Another group traveled to our local skilled nursing facility in Susquehanna to sing and pray and visit. One resident excused his usual Sunday ride with his family and stayed for worship with our visiting group. Another resident wondered if the group will come again.
A young mother with a theory decided to take her family, with three small children, to visit Harford Village Apartments. She was correct, seniors “perk up” when the energy of small children arrives.
After discovering that a local woman who is losing the use of her hands needed some firewood cut into very small pieces, a group of four men went to the woods with chainsaws and donuts. They piled two pick-up truck-sized loads of small pieces next to her door.
A woman prepared a meal and took it to her reclusive neighbor. In our area there are people who simply will not come out. Whether it be fear, hurt, poverty or the accumulation of loneliness and sadness, hermit-types seldom come out of their houses. This woman took a meal to the hard-of-hearing John and yelled conversation with him for two hours.
Another family escorted an elderly woman to her church.
Another woman, who admitted to being pushed far outside of her comfort zone, asked the most challenging woman she knew out to lunch.
A group of Lakeview people decided to fast for the entire day and send off the money they saved on meals to the Worm Project. One man, who fasted from Saturday evening through Monday morning said, “I still have the choice of when to begin and break my fast…but those going hungry are denied even that choice…so with my choices, I am well off.”
These are the stories, the report, from our “Church Day Out” at Lakeview.
We admit these are baby steps in our understanding of mission in the kingdom. Jesus once said the kingdom of God is like yeast in a loaf of bread. I think what we have learned so far is that you do have to add the yeast!
The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.