a little church with big love

I used to be "youth pastor" at a little church in Bryant, Indiana. A small church with big love out in the middle of the middle of nowhere on some road marked 650. My favorite road in the fall. There is a quarter mile section where the trees hold hands across the street, stretching their limbs to create a tunnel of browns, yellows, and oranges.

Go down the road a few miles over a stomach dropping hill and around a few Amish buggies and you’ll see it, a little white church, slightly smaller than the size of an old farm house, with a gravel parking lot, an old bell, and small yard with two wooden crosses (the third fell down a couple years ago).

It’s the kind of church that fights to keep its doors open and heater running (in fact this past Sunday while I was there they had a vote to keep it open or shut it down), but always seems to make it, whether the toilet flushes every Sunday or not. And it survives because of its people. They are stubborn, a little for tradition and familiarity, but mostly for what they believe that building can give, for what that building has given them.

The people that love best are the ones that have to fight for it.

And their biggest fight may be the one to give in and shut the doors. They are preparing for that, while hoping they don’t have to, but realizing that no matter what happens, Sardinia Missionary Church is bigger than a building.

It was good to be back for church this past Sunday, good see the old youth room in the basement still with aluminum foil walls (it fit the budget and was kind of a joke with the church name, designed to look like a sardine can), good to make music with the Frey's, and good to talk to the Horns.

But it was very good to throw snowballs at Tom and Colton. Cameron, Zach, and I tried to take their fort in a game of capture the flag in the snow after church. We played for hours. My New Balances were soaked along with my four pairs of socks long before Sidney joined us and we decided to go sledding. Because of that, my nose is sniffling as I write the post. But I don’t care, because only people who live life get sick. I lived a lot this last week and for that I welcome a little cold.

After the snow games me and my friends (I almost wrote "kids that used to be in my youth group", but that seemed so impersonal and insufficient. They are more than that. Why does the church put such dumb labels on people? I refuse to be a "youth pastor" and don’t want a "youth group". I want to be a friend. I want bothers and sisters. The church is family not some business or organization that categorizes people...) we went to the Ritz, an old two screen movie theater where you can get a ticket, coke, bag of popcorn, and a candy bar for well under ten bucks. There we saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I’d pay the fortune it costs at a cinema to it see again.

The next day I went to Jay County High School and had lunch with Cameron, Tom, Zack, Colton, Matt, and Carrie. I miss pizza boats and chocolate milk in a tiny carton. Between the office sign-in sheet and the cafeteria I managed to get yelled at by two teachers (some things never change). Once for not wearing the big red visitor’s name tag they gave me (the lady in the office never said I had to wear the thing) and once for wearing a hat.