Church in the Park

I began my time in Oregon by attending the Ainsworth UCC. I had studied their website several times and was impressed by how current it is. The items on their site were all about events happening in August. So, I got up early on August 8 and checked the website one last time to make sure that I had the right address and correct time for worship. I arrived at the church at 9:59 a.m. for what I believed was a 10 a.m. worship. There was a young family reading a sign on the locked front door. It said that worship was happening at Pennisula Park. Luckily my phone can do GPS and I found the park. I noticed that the young family never did show up.

When I arrived there were a few people there but nothing was happening. I asked someone when church started and she said 10:30 a.m. I said, "Your website says 10 a.m." She said once a year we have church in the park and once a year we meet at 10:30 a.m. There is absolutely nothing about this on their website. At least I didn't find it. It made me want to make sure that at the La Verne CoB we do a better job of keeping our website up to date....weekly.

Even though I was grumpy by the time worship began I was impressed with this congregation I thought to myself, "If I lived in Portland I could see myself in a church like this one." It is multiracial, multicultural, open and affirming and believes in peace. The people of the congregation definitely cared about each other. Children were welcomed and loved. In fact, the children were given bubbles and invited to dance. Instead of a sermon we answered questions about our understanding of God. People felt safe to express themselves. How is that kind of depth of sharing and love fostered in congregational life?

When Ainsworth UCC has "church in the park" they seem less worried about time. I couldn't stay until the end and still meet my family to travel to the reunion. I bid farewell to the woman I was sitting next to and left before the service was over.

One of the things I learned on my last sabbatical was that visiting churches in the summer months is unsatisfying. Usually, their choir is off and their music staff is on vacation. The question can't just be how do we continue to develop vibrant worship September through the middle of June but how do we also retain vibrancy in June, July and August? After all, visitors do continue to come and check us out in the summer.

This next Sunday I will not be visiting a church. Brett and I are getting up in the middle of the night to begin our road trip to Chicago.