More details will follow, but this past weekend was unique for Calvary and several other congregations in the Centre Region: we cancelled church. To be more accurate, we cancelled our regularly scheduled worship gatherings, choosing instead to mobilize small groups all across the community, serving our friends and neighbors in practical ways. We’ve been doing this for several years now, and it always turns out to be something different and more than we expect.
Our lifegroup chose 2 different projects. Saturday found a group of us working at the Boal Mansion Museum in historic Boalsburg. You can read some of the fascinating history here. It turns out that not only is Boalsburg famous for being the birthplace of Memorial Day (woot!) it also plays home to the most important collection of Christopher Columbus artifacts in North America.
We spent all afternoon at the Mansion, some of us working inside dusting and cleaning, others of us raking leaves and cutting/removing dead trees. Yep, some of us were outside in the pouring rain all afternoon! Near the end of the day a tree top fell down. In less than 30 minutes our crew had felled the rest of the tree, cut it into moveable chunks, and hauled it out! It was fun to be working together in the rain, I have to admit!
As part of the payoff, Chris Lee (the 9th generation of the Boal family) gave us an abbreviated tour of the house and chapel. He was fabulous! I could have stayed there for hours soaking in the history. My favorite room was the weapons room, where he showed us cases of rifles, dating back to the Revolutionary War.
Sunday found a smaller group of us raking a neighbor’s yard in Houserville. She’s got a bum knee and couldn’t handle her yard work, so we pitched in. What would have taken her the better part of a day took us only about 30 minutes. That’s so easy, even a caveman could do it, you know, if he had a rake and the inclination. We’re making plans to go back and help her with her backyard, and might even be her grass-cutting crew for this spring.
Why do we do it? Well, it certainly isn’t because we’re all bored and looking for something to do. No, it’s more because we’re trying to recapture the Mission of the Church. We’re believe that God has blessed us so that we can be a blessing to other people. Too much of our time, money, and effort goes to serving our own needs. We want to be a blessing to the people around us, to our friends and neighbors. Jesus told his followers (I read this today in the LifeJournal!):
You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. Jesus, Matthew 5:14-16
It’s our sincere desire to be a blessing to the folks who live around us, to spend ourselves serving others. When they see our good works, we want them to see Jesus, to open the doors for conversation, to point them to their heavenly Father. After all, he loves them just like he loves us, even if they don’t know it yet.
And even though we cancel church gatherings on one weekend of the year, we hope that this mentality, this way of living catches steam and becomes a regular part of the life of the church. It can’t be just a special event if it’s going to be real. It’s got to be in the DNA of our lives.
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