A growing church - for a change - Sept. 6, 2015

I attended worship this morning at the Star Valley United Church (Lutheran and Presbyterian). Although Pastor Al Schoonover had told me on  Friday that the church was growing, I was nonetheless surprised by its vitality. I would estimate that there were 80 people present -  in this Mormon town of 400 people. The congregation, as usual, received me very warmly, and many people were eager to talk in what was a very wonderful coffee hour. (I have observed that the vitality of a church congregation is directly proportional to the quality of refreshments at its coffee hour. This one was superb. Cake,  coffee, fruit,and cheese nachos! Deliver me from the coffee hours with tepid coffee and oreos.) - What they wanted to talk about was the weather (cold snap, frost on the windshields this morning), football scores (Alabama beat Wisconsin, to Pastor Schoonover's sorrow; Brigham Young beat Nebraska, to everyone's sorrow; the Broncos won by one point; what happened  to Tebow?), people they knew on the east coast, what it is like living in a Mormon town, and, supremely and uniformly, the growth of this church under the leadership of  Pastor Schoonover. 

The worship service itself was more Lutheran than Presbyterian - that is to say, it was more liturgical. than most Presbyterian services, but it was also extremely warm. Pastor Schoonover's 47 years of pastoral experience showed. The liturgy, while extensive, is folksy and informal. His sermon, preached extempore, managed to turn the difficult passage of Jesus' encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, where it appears that Jesus is equating gentiles with dogs, to an encounter with a persistent woman who was like a bulldog in her concern for her daughter. (Mark 7:24 ff.) The take away was that a crumb of God's mercy is all that is required. Illustrated by stories from his experience, it was a moving sermon. And people ate it  up. A warm sermon, folksy hymns, an inclusive and open liturgy, and a great coffee hour: the congregation has doubled, they tell me, in the last year. There's something to learn here.

I mostly have pictures of mountains, now. But here's one of the sunset last night, behind my motel. Blessings.