Someone's Been Talking in Church

Just over a quarter mile away (but longer then the 6 minutes walking time projected by Google, because of little legs and distract-able eyes), we had hoped and prayed that the Brookline Church of Christ would be a good fit for us (or even just ok) during our year here.  And God has definitely answered our prayers!

Our first week at church brought a few surprises. Walking to church wasn't one of them.

The first was entering the church building and immediately recognizing someone.  Like, "I know this guy.  But who is he?"  Brian figured it out first - Dr. Randy Lowry, President of Lipscomb University.  He took over as president right after Brian and I graduated, so we really didn't know him but definitely recognized him from all the Lipscomb publications that we get.  Turns out that he and his wife go up to Vermont to teach summer law school classes, but they always stop by Brookline C of C on their way through.  And Barbara Lowry was going to give the sermon that morning.  (Yes, we were somewhat prepared for this by an article on the church's web site.  Women also do scripture reading and help serve the Lord's Supper.)  Anyway, I snuck an iphone photo while Brian and Dr. Lowry to document the meeting.  He seemed really nice and ended up taking down both our names - he was surprised to find out that I was in the engineering school since it was so small/young back in the day. 

The other surprise?  Not such a fun one.  No air conditioning in the church!  None!  I actually don't think I've ever been in a building without it, ever.  And our whole family was already sweating from our walk to church (90 degrees that morning at 10:30am), so we were all basically dripping as church services started.  I don't think I've blogged about it yet, but Sarah's hair is long enough that it curls when it gets damp/wet (we're pretty excited to finally discover that she has some natural curl to her hair!).  And that morning she was sweating enough to end up with a head full of little ringlets!

Aside from the air conditioning issue, we were pretty happy about the church.  The singing was EXCELLENT (must be great acoustics in the building).  Both Sundays that we've been there, there have been around 50 people at services, so pretty small, but there are lots of other young couples transplanted here for various graduate programs at the plethora of schools in the city.  But there are very, very few children.  There is one little girl a few months younger then Sarah, then two brothers who are 4 and 7.  Also 2 or 3 infants.  But that's it.  So I have to confess that Grandmother was correct in predicting that I may be teaching Sunday school lots this year!  Actually there is no separate class time at this church, but the children break out from the main services before the sermon for "kids church".  I've gone down and stayed with the kids both weeks so far (so I missed Mrs. Lowry's sermon), but Brian's going to take them down tomorrow.  Part of the reason I've stayed both weeks is that the church has just started rotating different volunteers to cover kids church each week, but the material they have is at an elementary school level.  And having 5 kids ranging from 1 to 7 in one class is pretty crazy anyway.  But we'll figure something out, I'm sure.

The coolest thing that happened the first Sunday was during their prayer request portion of the service.  They call it "Praying for the Church and the World" when people give their prayer requests, one at a time, and then a prayer is said for each request (so it goes request, prayer, next request, another prayer, etc).  Well, in an unexpected act of boldness, Nathan tried to speak up during one of the prayer requests.  (Brian later told me he thought it was because of the "Good News" the kids shared during kid's church in Winston-Salem.)  We shushed him because someone else was talking and because that was my natural inclination to keep him quiet during church.  The minister* took the other person's prayer request, the church prayed and then moved on to the next part of the service.  THEN the minister stopped the service and apologized and came back to Nathan to take his prayer request, which was that Nathan had gotten to ride on the train.  I had tears in my eyes and the biggest grin on my face.  I thought it was so cool (and completely unexpected) for the minister to basically stop the service and how respectful he was of Nathan and his prayer request.

*The "minister" is Bob Randolph, who is also the head chaplain at MIT.  He is on the church steering committee (no elders or deacons) and seems to be one of the main leaders in the church.  There's also no preacher, so preaching duties are shared between members of the congregation.

Since that first Sunday, I've given some thought to this event.  And like I said, my natural inclination is to keep the kids quiet during church.  But I heard from some other members (in passing) that they were glad that Bob made a point to include Nathan in the prayer requests.  And I also started thinking about what Jesus in Matt 19:14 - "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  So I've decided that I should be thankful for a congregation who is encouraging of children to speak out at appropriate times and that Nathan's prayer requests are just as important as anyone's.  But I will say that after a second week of his prayer request being that he "rode on the T train and had ticket", on the way to church tomorrow we will discuss a new prayer request for him to share!