Sunday morning beach party in Chetek

“How wonderful, how beautiful,
    when brothers and sisters get along!
It’s like costly anointing oil
    flowing down head and beard,
Flowing down Aaron’s beard,
    flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.
It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon
    flowing down the slopes of Zion.
Yes, that’s where God commands the blessing,
    ordains eternal life.” Psalm 133, 

The Message

This past Sunday a few fellowships in our town gathered at Phillips Park (known to all the locals as “Beach Park”) to worship the Lord together. It was a part of our community's annual festival – Liberty Fest – and billed in all the promotional material as “Let's Do Church! - The Chetek Community Church Service. In the very place where the day before lots of folks had gathered to jam to the music of the Altered Vision Band at the annual Chetek Beach Party, about 125 people gathered to celebrate at a very different kind of party at the same waterfront locale.

The idea for gathering together during Liberty Fest didn't arise out of any pastor's mind maybe because it had been tried before with limited success. Granted that was in the last century (i.e., the 20^th Century) but as one of the pastors who had participated in those gatherings I can testify that they were sparsely attended by a majority of folks who perhaps “had” to be there – you know, pastor's wives and their brood and a few faithful others. But Monica, a mother of six (and a wife of one), who was not around back then believed it would be a glorious thing if the entire Body of Christ in Chetek could gather at the beach in one accord during our community's busiest weekend of the year. One morning this past April she showed up at “the Breakfast Club”, the weekly gathering at Bob's Grill of pastors and ministry leaders who gather together for coffee, breakfast, conversation and prayer, and shared her dream with those of us present. I won't speak for the others but I admit that my knee-jerk response could be fairly characterized as “been there-done that.” It's not that I'm against corporate gatherings of the Body of Christ. Just a few weeks ago our fellowship shut down and joined Advent Christian in celebration of a successful conclusion to VBS (see In praise of latex balloons and painting rocks). No, I just lacked the confidence that people would come.

I've been a protestant my whole life, even before I came to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. It's only my opinion but when Catholics go on vacation, a lot of them still make it to mass in whatever town they may be staying in because grace, after all, is tied to the Eucharist. That's why attendance at St. Boniface tends to go up during the summer months when a lot of tourists are in town. But Protestants tend to think differently about those kinds of things. When they go on vacation that includes a break from whatever they normally do on Sunday which is why most of us see no “blip” in our attendance during the time of year when our town happens to be swimming with out-of-towners. Given that the 4^th of July weekend is a holiday even for those of us who live here, some of us choose to get away and relax and join the throng enjoying the lake, the beach or their own cabin in the woods so that attendance tends to be a bit slim on that particular Sunday. Now factor in we would not be meeting at our regular place (and therefore people would not have access to their regular pew or chair), my hunch was that it would be a throwback to the sparsely attended gatherings in the '90s. But since no one else wanted to rain on her parade, who was I to do so especially when she is an active member of The Refuge?

Pastor Bert from Northside

There was not a heavy-handed pitch for this event. Monica simply contacted all nine pastors in town and asked if they would consider joining. I don't think any pastor told her no but in the end only three of them said “yes” – Advent Christian, Northside Christian Fellowship (formerly Chetek Alliance) and Refuge. The local YWAM campus – YWAM-Northwoods - played a key role in the gathering as well. There were no pre-event planning meetings where a carefully crafted liturgy could be hammered out. As she relayed to me, she simply prayed about it and God gave her the format: A small worship team (made of up of YWAMers from Brazil) would lead in worship,the three participating pastors would each briefly share and the head YWAM-guy would conclude the gathering. Pretty straight forward. Pretty bare bones.

Pastor Norm from Advent

For a worship gathering at the beach, the morning was warm enough that a few families showed up in their swim wear to not only “do church” but dip themselves in the lake while doing so. In these parts, there are not many Sundays in the calendar year when we can indulge both our spirit and our flesh at the same time and honor God while doing so. While 60 folding chairs were set up the event had been billed as BYOLC (or bring your own lawn chair). Given that the shade at that time of the morning primarily hugs Lakeview Drive that's where folks tended to sit so that the crowd of about 125 sprawled all over the beach area. The net affect of the heat of the sun and the shade that the tall pines provided gave the appearance that the beach area was rather full with worshipers of Jesus – maybe not Beach Party full but fuller than any of the participating fellowships would have been had we kept to our own friendly confines.

Leading the way

At 10:08-ish, Monica welcomed everyone, shared briefly about how this idea of hers came about and then opened in prayer. The Brazilian team of Jose, Juliana, Marco and Roberto chose four songs – two contemporary and two “old” hymns – for us to worship to. The first two, “Our God” and “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?” worship was a bit muted, maybe because a number of the folks there weren't familiar with those songs. But when Jose and team began to lead us in a blues version of “Standing on the Promises” there was a distinct shift in the atmosphere. We were no longer just singing songs, we were extolling the Lord together. The same could be said when Jose and team segued to “Amazing Grace.” It seemed at that moment we truly were “in one accord.”

Following worship, each participating pastor was given ten minutes to share, a time allotment that was generally honored, and then YWAM-Northwoods Director David Holmbeck brought the closing. None of us conferred with each other prior to the gathering as to what we would share. But putting all four messages together a common theme emerged: Jesus came full of grace and truth; we need God's help to have the same demeanor as we follow him in these interesting days we live in.

The gathering ended about an hour and 15 minutes after it had begun. Folks were encouraged to turn to some people in your general vicinity and pray with one another before they took off for the Craft Fair or the Vintage Auto Show. Many did so that a half hour after the fact folks were still lingering, sharing, and praying with one another.

It was a wonderful time together helped, in part, by employing a very simple liturgy. My personal hope is that it left a taste in some people's mouth for doing this sort of thing more than just once a year when we all get out our red, white and blue.