The house nearly hit me.
We met on 112th Street, both of us driving well within the posted speed limit. I was traveling northbound toward the church farmhouse; the house was moving southward to parts unknown. A parade of sorts: led by a car with flashing lights, followed by the garage, then another car with flashing lights. The whole house, lock, stock and barrel...out of place yet somehow homey. There was a cat perched in the bedroom window. I had the feeling that there might be someone in the kitchen washing dishes.
It's not a sight you see every day, so I pulled over to watch. There wasn't much else to do anyway -- the house took up both lanes. If you had to move, that wouldn't be all bad, I thought. You wouldn't have to leave home -- wouldn't even need to pack. Maybe just tie a few things down. Give the kids a map so they'd know where to find you at dinner time. Or maybe you'd drive the house over to find them....
When we build houses we don't plan on moving them -- we build them to stay put, sinking their foundations deep below the frost line and nailing our houses down, board by board, block by block, brick by brick, piece by piece. And when we do move a house, it takes weeks of preparation: breaking into the old foundation; slowly jacking the house up above it; finding a new site; building a new foundation; gathering the permits; moving overhead wires along the way... You have to wonder if it's worth the effort. And it looks so strange!
Yet that's what we do Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings at Good Shepherd's house of worship. We move the church into a school or under a tent, put up chairs, set the altar table, proclaim God's Good News, sing and pray our thanksgiving, serve the Lord's Supper -- and then we stack the chairs, pack up the altar, and scatter the church of Christ back into the world for another week. Every day is moving day. It's a lot of work. We spend a lot of time building foundations, talking about who we are and whose we are and where we're going. Sometimes we're hard to find. We make our share of mistakes along the way -- and to folks who expect a church to stay put, we look a little strange. But we try to follow Jesus Christ wherever he takes us. We've become pretty flexible. We don't wait for folks to find us -- we look for them, meet them where they are and accept them for who they are. And we have a pretty good time along the way.
We're in the process of becoming an official congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, hoping to be recognized as such in November. Our Building Committee expects to complete our own facility in about two years. But even after we become an "official" church with lots of bricks and mortar, I can't believe that Good Shepherd will ever just stay put -- once you get used to moving, it gets into your system, becomes a way of life. You just have to remember to make sure people know how to find you -- and stop now and then to let out the cat.
Pastor Jim
Close this window to return to the list of Pastor's Thoughts.
E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.