First, introductions. We are a family of five: Dean and Mindy are 44, Bret is a sophomore in high school, Paige is in junior high and Jill is finishing elementary school.
Next year, we hope to begin a year-long experiment as itinerant parishoners, visiting a different church each Sunday, one per state plus the National Cathedral in Washington DC and our home church, Healdsburg Community Church, in California. For practice, I'm going to begin recording our experiences at church this year.
On January 1, our family attended Healdsburg Community Church (as usual). Since Dean was preaching I rounded up all the change in the house for the kids' offerings and the rest of us got to church just before the service started at 9:30.
It was raining again (over the New Year's weekend, our area got around five inches of rain), and quite a few people couldn't get to church due to flooding in the Alexander Valley area. Others hadn't come back from holiday trips. Paige was scheduled to work in the nursery in place of one storm-bound person.
Although she had expected to be out of town, the Minister of Christian Formation was at church after all and would to lead the pastoral prayer. Jill found a friend, T--, and joined her in the children's row. Paige went into the nursery, where one of the usual toddlers was waiting already. I found Bret at the back of the sanctuary, where several other high schoolers were helping on the sound board, and he and I joined Dean's mom and Roxanne in the front row as the service got started.
The night before, Dean had started suffering from a cough, and I wondered, as he introduced the carols we would be singing as a congregation, if he had a glass of water. I doubted it, but forgot to check once we started singing.
Our neighbor, C--, read scripture: the entire book of Philemon (all 25 verses). Kids -- the few that were there this week -- were sent off to Sunday School, and the rest of us prepared for the "sharing" time before the pastoral prayer.
I really like the "prayers of the people" sharing time. People usually share actual needs or joys, but they also introduce visiting family members...or themselves. Two people scurry around with mics and usually people use them. One woman rejoiced that her brother was retiring and moving back to the States. Another woman's brother is hospitalized with a serious condition. I hope I wasn't the only person thinking about (and praying for) the man a few rows back who's been recalled to active duty in Iraq.
Our Minister of Christian Formation read the names of the folks on the prayer list in the bulletin, and she led us in the Lord's Prayer. We're a "Federated" church...in our case Methodist and Presbyterian functioning as one congregation...and we say "forgive us our trespasses" like the Methodists rather than "forgive us our debts" like the Presbyterians. Sitting next to my mother-in-law, who attends a Presbyterian church, I wondered if she'd remember. At the critical moment, though, I was actually thinking about what I was saying instead of what she was saying.
The offering plate was passed, the offertory was sung; it was time for the sermon. First Dean talked about the practice of slavery, now and in history. Once that was out of the way, he talked about how much he enjoyed the tone of Philemon. Commentators, he said, describe the Apostle Paul's tact when he talks about the runaway slave. Dean said he didn't think Paul was tactful at all...he sounded more passive-agressive. Philemon could have no doubt what Paul expected him to do.
I think finally the sermon was really about freedom. Philemon, if he would not acknowledge Onesimus as a free brother in Christ, would be more of a slave than Onesimus was. And Onesimus could not be truly free, even though he had escaped his master, without returning to Philemon after he became a believer.
Then we sang Amazing Grace...with the organ, as J -- , sitting behind me, had requested and P -- the organist had made possible by hurriedly setting the stops during the scripture reading. And we had snacks after the benediction, coffee and cucumbers on crackers and cupcakes and cake and orange juice. Little kids swarmed, Paige said the nursery had been easier than on Christmas eve when only one kid was there, Jill and her friend T-- went out into the rain where Jill stepped in dog poop and got soaked trying to clean her shoe. After talking to friends for fifteen minutes or so, we all went home.
52Sundays.org
