About that last blog entry

I failed to mention some of the reasons for declining attendance at our local churches, so I'll just stop what I'm doing and address that.

First of all, Wellington is a small town, yet sort of a bedroom community for people who work in Kansas City.  The town is holding its own as far as population:  I wrote a song years ago about Wellington, and one line said, ''Seven hundred eighty people, every one my friend".  I know that number hasn't increased by much, and I think I wrote the song in 1980.

Wellington is a farming community with a high population of people of German heritage, which is why the church in town with the highest attendance is St. Luke's.  It used to be a UCC (United Church of Christ, not to be confused with the Church of Christ I was raised in).  The church pulled out of the UCC years ago, and now they are an Evangelical Free congregation.  The old German families still attend.  However, as the younger generation grows up, goes to college, and graduates, there's not room for all of them on the farms.  They find jobs elsewhere, often in a large city and out of the state.  

By the way, St. Luke's church has a fascinating history:  As I understand it, up until World War I, the services were in the German language.

Another factor in the decline in attendance at local churches is that people with young children and teenagers desire programs that include the kids, something to hopefully keep them interested in attending church throughout their lives.  The small churches just can't offer that.  

A Catholic friend, in a comment she must have deleted, asked me where the Catholic Church is around here.  Well, I honestly have to say that while I love my Catholic friends, it would be difficult for me to make such a huge change.  Although if a Catholic Church were the only one I could attend, I'd go there, I suppose.  Our town has never had a Catholic Church, but there's one in Lexington, ten miles away, and one in Odessa.  Cliff and I know where all the Catholic Churches are because we enjoy their Lenten fish fries. 

Lent is another thing I was never familiar with, by the way.  Also the Apostle's Creed, although I've almost learned it from the church I was attending before, and the Methodist church I attend now. 

Another friend commented that she doesn't think too much about heaven and hell.  Neither do I.  I am just trying to be a better person now that I'm older.  For me, that's never easy, but I know that's what I'm supposed to do, and I feel better about myself if I make an effort.  One of the sermons last Sunday was on honest prayer.  As I was thinking about the subject of prayer the next morning, I realized there are a few people who present me with a problem when I pray.  I'm supposed to be praying for the people I don't like instead of pretending they don't exist, because that's what we're supposed to do.   I imagine God got a laugh out of me trying to figure out how on earth I can pray for them!  After some false starts, I realized I have been in the habit of telling God how He should fix these people.  I also realized I had a part in all these relationships going sour, and that it probably wouldn't do me any harm to think back on the times I could have kept my mouth shut so I'd be able to change MY behavior.  I did come out of that little session amazed that my feelings about these three people had changed as I looked at them from a different perspective.  That's the big thing about prayer:  If it changes nothing else, it will change you. 

Another thing:  I don't get on my knees and pray some long drawn-out prayer.  I talk to God when I have something to say, just like I do Cliff.  I might be taking a walk or washing dishes, but those are the times I pray.  I do a lot of thanking God, especially early mornings.  

But who cares about my prayer life?  I just wanted my readers to know all the reasons why the churches have such small attendance.  The number one reason, of course, is that people aren't believers, or else like Cliff, never went to church and have no reason to start now.  

When I was a kid in north Missouri, neighbors were more important to one another.  On Sunday nights the adults would hang around inside the church or just outside the front door, smoking, and catch up on local news.  Farmers would talk about their crops and compare notes on how their livestock was doing.  I wouldn't be surprised to find out that even the atheists went to church back then, just to hear the local buzz.  An elderly lady named Patty who sits behind me at the Methodist Church, said her grandmother and mother both used to attend that church.  She said years ago there were three grocery stores in town, and most of the local merchants attended that Church.  Now there are no stores in Wellington.  The bank and the old hardware store are gone, as is Virgil's barber shop.  We had a mini-mart at the city limits but this year's flood damage caused it to close.  So now you can't even buy a quart of milk without going to Lexington or Odessa.

Changes happen.  Younger folks welcome it, old folks reminisce about the old days as a method of coping.

And if any of my several atheist friends are reading this, they're thinking, "I'll be glad when she gets off this religious kick."  

Don't worry.  I think I'm done with this subject.  

Yours sincerely,
Donna

Just call me the Church Lady

After accompanying me to church for a few years, Cliff informed me going to church wasn't his thing.  He'd gone with me after he retired, simply because I asked him  to, now that he had plenty of time and leisure.  Over the years, I had always what I call a "church widow"; every church has some, and often they make up half the congregation: they are the women who who have a husband at home, but go to church alone.  Women, I guess, feel the need for God and Jesus more than men.   

When Cliff announced his intentions to stay home on Sundays, he told me he would gladly take me to church and pick me up afterward; after staying home for a Sunday or two, I made a decision:  While I had no problem with the church we'd been attending, I wanted to see what the Methodist Church was like.  It's the only one of the five churches in Wellington I've never attended on a Sunday; there is one small store-front church I only attended with my daughter once, when she was a teenager; I doubt she remembers:  But that one wasn't my cup of tea.  I also wanted to visit the Baptist church in town:  I had attended that one for several years, even sang some of my home-made songs there; and both my kids were baptized in their baptistry.  I have good memories of those days.  How could I possibly decide?

To help me with my decision, I decided to switch between the Baptist and Methodist Churches on alternate Sundays.  The Methodist Church is sharing a pastor with the Odessa UMC church, so the remnant of folks left in the Wellington congregation gets him at 9 AM:  He leads the service, then he and his wife drive the ten miles or so to Odessa to do his duty there; the Wellington group have their Sunday School after the pastor leaves for Odessa.

What I found out is that both these congregations are struggling for members.  If either of them have twenty people in attendance, it's a good day.  In the Methodist Church, 90% of the people in attendance are senior citizens, so you wonder just how much longer the church can go on.  I will hand it to the new pastor:  He is doing his best not to make the small group feel "left out" of things; he's going the extra mile to make sure people don't just feel like they are playing second fiddle.  

I like the people I meet at the Baptist Church, and since the pastor still has some grown kids at home, there are younger faces in attendance there.  I was shocked the first Sunday when I went in and saw not a single face I recognized from the 70's, although after attending a few times, I found out one of the men... a bearded guy... was someone I had known well in the old days; he just didn't look like he used to, what with the beard and 40 years of aging.  Oh, and he has a different wife... I would definitely have recognized him, had his first wife been beside him; she passed away some time ago.  

I gazed around at the handful of people, and I must have looked confused:  the preacher's wife introduced herself, surveyed the few folks in the pews with me, and said, "Well, this is about it."

Someone told me there had been a split in the congregation due to some disagreement, which sort of explained the small crowd.    

Most people these days aren't church attenders.  Many of them, like Cliff, say church bores them.  I know there are also a lot of folks who just don't accept the concept of God, or Jesus.  They prefer science.  That's their belief, and you may as well accept the fact they aren't going to change in that opinion.   (I don't feel science and Christianity are that far apart, but I digress).  Everyone who isn't retired works Monday through Friday and have only the weekend to get things done.  Somewhere in the last few years, after sporadic church attendance on my part throughout much of my life, I felt the need to go to church.  I missed the hymns I grew up with, and I needed the feeling that Sunday was a "special" day with a purpose.  I guess this goes to prove the fact that if you "train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)  Yes, something about growing older made me want to be in church, and it wasn't because I was scared of dying.  Cliff has always said the reason I like to go to church is that I was raised that way... and he wasn't.  

After going to different churches on alternating weeks for a month, it occurred to me that there was no reason I couldn't go to both, every Sunday.  I liked each one, and it's only five blocks from one to the other.  I leave the Methodist Church at 10, walk to the Baptist Church, sit for a few minutes in a back pew till they get done with Sunday School, and there I am at another church service.  Here's a surprising fact:  I've found out I enjoy going to church more without Cliff beside me!  (Does that surprise you, Cliff?)  I don't even know why, and I sort of feel guilty about it, but I'm more "myself" without him along.  I visit with people freely, and actually feel more comfortable in my skin.  Maybe it's good for me to talk to people on my own, once a week.  

I'm only one person, but I'm one more person sitting in the empty pew, making the group one person bigger.  

Change is hard, and it hurts me to see the traditions of the past fading:  I hate seeing the empty pews, and the churches that have closed down in other small towns.  As for me, I feel comforted that there is still a place or two in this country where I can walk in as a stranger, alone, and have people who are happy to see me and greet me warmly.  That fact alone makes me want to make use of such freedom!  Oh, and now I get to sing twice as many of the hymns I love each Sunday.  Besides, I feel downright ecumenical.  That's a long shot from how my religious training started out, where "the only folks going to heaven are me and thee, and I'm not too sure abut thee."  

Don't think I'm bad-mouthing the religious training of my childhood, though.  I wouldn't trade the things I learned with anybody.  I still remember many of my memory verses from that time.

So there you have it.  Just another surprise for me in my golden years, another chapter in a wonderful life that I would not trade with anybody.  

Peace.