Formative Church Visit: Midland Mennonite

On Sunday, August 7, BJ and I attended worship with the congregation I call my "home church," having spent the majority of my childhood Sunday mornings, Sunday and Wednesday evenings in this little rural church building.  Well, and there were the years when my family also cleaned the building (which meant two days of wiping down benches and emptying trash cans each week), and the years when my mother was the church secretary and I was privileged  to help with turning the crank on the messy blue inked mimeograph machine.  This was my church and I was intimately connected to every steel folding chair in the basement and every person who attended.  So the Midland Mennonite Church was my place where my people gathered.  It was also the place where I met BJ, my life-partner.  It was to me the second most influential entity in my life (after familiy /home and before neighborhood and school).

My mom and dad attended with BJ and I on August 7, which was important to me since they have for many years been involved with another congregation.  This was a sweet memory experience for me.  There were many comforts, including aspects of the church which have not changed in the 25 years since it was my church.  We arrived about 10 minutes before worship and were about 10 minutes earlier than the majority of the congregation.  "Pastor Don" in his usual warmth (I have gotten to know him at Conference events) met us at the door and exclaimed his surprised pleasure in seeing us.

While the worship feel was nostalgically familiar, it is clear that this is a different congregation than the one I knew so well as a child.  I counted about 11 people who I knew from childhood, and felt encouraged to see there had been many "new" faces in a congregation which has experienced many waves of membership loss.  The worship itself was inviting and informal, to the point of "folksy" and theologically fixed on a gospel of personal salvation as an escape from hell's fires.  In all of this, I knew I was back home with the congregation which gave me my first understanding of the gospel, and I did find myself musing at how the congregation could still be at this point.

It was a wonderful joy to talk to old brothers and sisters including one woman who I believe was instrumental in my later hearing God's call to ministry.  When I was about 16 years old she spoke to me after a youth led worship service to tell me that I would someday be a "preacher," a notion which I scorned for a many years.  So last Sunday, after almost 40 years, I thanked her for speaking this holy word to me.  And I thank God for the Midland Mennonite Church for providing me my first place and people whereby Christ could begin the call in my life.