Post by dgriffin on Jul 4, 2008 20:32:02 GMT -5
Acts 18: 1-3 (NIV)
1After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
A man in the supermarket in a small town in western Maine convinced me to come to his church in 1978. Intrigued by his enthusiasm and sincerity, I brought my family the following Sunday morning and prepared to sit down in the back pew, when the shaggiest steel guitar riff lit up the pulpit in a blaze of sound.
"Hello, Friend," came a sepulchral voice, as the stunning last chord drifted off, "come sit down in front so we can all meet you!"
My wife and kids and I stood frozen for just a second and then proceeded down the aisle to the "pew of honor" up front. In addition to the guitar man in the pulpit, a teenage boy was at the piano and a lumberjack-looking dude with a big bushy beard played ... honest to God ... a washtub bass, complete with hinged pole and piano string. And he played it well!
The congregation numbered about 50 and they rented the former Methodist building so they could have a service according to their wishes. They had no use for pipe organs, paid choir directors or the other trappings of some mainline churches. They would not have felt comfortable, nor possibly welcome, in such churches. They were hardworking farmers, mechanics and ... yes ... their "minister" fitted canvas on tent campers for a living. Bill ... his name wasn't Paul ... took no pay. When not working, he visited the sick and tried to help anyone within grabbing distance of his large heart.
For three summers, renting a camp near South Paris for two weeks, we always visited "St. Bill and the Boys," as we called the congregation. The fourth summer they were gone, the church boarded up and closed.
"How sad," said my wife.
"Not really," I replied. "They were here for us. Now, they're somewhere else. Seeds."
1After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
A man in the supermarket in a small town in western Maine convinced me to come to his church in 1978. Intrigued by his enthusiasm and sincerity, I brought my family the following Sunday morning and prepared to sit down in the back pew, when the shaggiest steel guitar riff lit up the pulpit in a blaze of sound.
"Hello, Friend," came a sepulchral voice, as the stunning last chord drifted off, "come sit down in front so we can all meet you!"
My wife and kids and I stood frozen for just a second and then proceeded down the aisle to the "pew of honor" up front. In addition to the guitar man in the pulpit, a teenage boy was at the piano and a lumberjack-looking dude with a big bushy beard played ... honest to God ... a washtub bass, complete with hinged pole and piano string. And he played it well!
The congregation numbered about 50 and they rented the former Methodist building so they could have a service according to their wishes. They had no use for pipe organs, paid choir directors or the other trappings of some mainline churches. They would not have felt comfortable, nor possibly welcome, in such churches. They were hardworking farmers, mechanics and ... yes ... their "minister" fitted canvas on tent campers for a living. Bill ... his name wasn't Paul ... took no pay. When not working, he visited the sick and tried to help anyone within grabbing distance of his large heart.
For three summers, renting a camp near South Paris for two weeks, we always visited "St. Bill and the Boys," as we called the congregation. The fourth summer they were gone, the church boarded up and closed.
"How sad," said my wife.
"Not really," I replied. "They were here for us. Now, they're somewhere else. Seeds."