Yesterday we picked up a new toy for Michael (it’s a planer), and today he said he didn’t really want to go to church at all, but at least could we go as late as possible? Since he was otherwise occupied in his shop, Farmergirl and I went to ECOR for the 10am service and sat with Miss Charlotte, the church matriarch who pitches everytime I see her for our return. As it turned out, this was also the day of the youth group’s trip to Silverwood, the local theme park, which they lobbied to take Farmergirl along on, so I left her and headed back to the ranch with intentions to take a nap, and head to the Refugee service at Jacob’s Well at 7pm after we picked her up.
After the nap, I decided to double check the Jacob’s Well website . . . which was good . . . kind of. They’ve moved the Refugee service to 2pm, and the ECOR youth weren’t due back to the Valley until 5pm. So I scrambled to find another evening service time, and settled on Redeemer Lutheran’s 7pm Elevate service.
It was all going swimmingly well . . . we picked up Farmergirl, went for Pho at a new place (actually, a former Pho place that’s changed hands), and headed out to find the funky Lutheran service. There was no one there. The parking lot was empty. The church was dark. It was still 23 minutes until 7, so we waited. Every car that came down the street slowed . . . for the train tracks that were before the turn in. At 7 minutes before the hour, a silver BMW started to swing into the lot, and we breathed a sigh of relief . . . and she popped the U-ie and went back across the tracks.
At 4 past, we gave up in despair, and went around back to find Farmergirl, who was on the playground. There, we ran into the very sweet cleaning guy who said, in a thick eastern block accent that they used to have an evening service, but he thought they were taking a break.
So . . . no service for week 34. Yet. We have two we’ve scouted out: Vespers on Tuesday at 6:30 at St. John the Baptist Church Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, or the 7pm service on Thursday at New Hope Church, to complete our attendance at all the churches on Harvard Rd. in Otis Orchard.
Check back later in the week . . . I’ll have something for you by Friday.
Just a thought, this may count as week 34. This is how some churches communicate, and how they don’t gather new people into the fold.