A picnic in February

Because guys like to stand around a fire

This past Sunday, February 22, at Refuge was our third (mostly) annual Winter Picnic (we skipped it last year for reasons I don't recall). For the past few years we've held a picnic around this time in defiance of the winter gods that bring cold and lots of gray (like Sunday). We start a fire out on the lawn (because guys like to stand around fire), bring the grill over from home and shake up the morning gathering. Our sole purpose is to insert a bit of color into this otherwise melancholy season.

Refuge is a small church – perhaps 50 heads all counted from little Isaac to old Duane. And having only served this small church in my 34 ½ year pastoral career I'm a big believer in the maxim that small churches should do what only small churches can do. Like every church, every Sunday we gather in the sanctuary and engage in worship, prayer, Word and fellowship. But sometimes we mix up the order (e.g., message first followed by worship as we head to the table for communion) or I arrange the chairs in an oval for a “sharing circle” (see 1 Corinthians 14:26) so faith-stories and exhortations may be shared with one another. 

One Sharing Circle Sunday

The author of Hebrews wrote,

“Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25, The Message) 

So long that by the benediction we've reached the main goals of worship, love and encouragement, I think there's a lot of latitude that can be taken toward that end. Especially in a small church. Thus, the Winter Picnic.

On Sunday, however, lots of things went sideways. Monica, the founder of the feast, woke up ill. Same goes for Kale, our youth guy, who was going to lead us in some fun “minute-to-win-it” kind of antics. What's more, the grill wouldn't fire. Some families were traveling or also down for the count with the crud. Long story short, only 18 people were on hand for our morning of planned frivolity.

Austin is always the grill master. This
was taken on a year the grill worked!

Austin, the grill master, improvised and moved his cooking operations into the kitchen. Everyone pitched in to set up the fellowship hall picnic-style and fortunately for me I had over-planned with a game of Baseball Bible Trivia in the hopper "just in case." As it turned out, it was just the thing our gathering needed.

This day will live in glory

After I shared a few fun-facts about February 22 (among them it being the 294th birthday of George Washington, the anniversary of the ratification of the treaty in 1819 that secured us the State of Florida from Spain for the paltry sum of $150 million in today's dollars and the 46th anniversary of the "Miracle on Ice" match between the US and the Soviets in Lake Placid, New York), my wife, Linda, led us in a Mad-Lib. A mad-lib is a "fill-in-the-blank" word game where players act as storytellers filling in missing words - such as nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs - without seeing the context of the story. Linda loves these things and we literally have pads of them around the house. Every time the kids come home we have to play a round or two before we do anything else.

Linda loves these things

At my request, Maggie read a portion of Psalm 118 and then I led our gathering in a few upbeat songs ("Forever" and "I've Got the Joy"). The pump now adequately primed we were ready to play ball. 

Baseball Bible Trivia is simple enough. Two teams go at it for three innings. Each "batter" picks a number (1-100) and then is asked a question. That question's answer is assigned a difficulty factor (single, double, triple and home run). Each batter can confer with his teammates before an answer is submitted. For simplicity, we batted through the order and then retired the sides. Questions included:

TRUE OR FALSE: Jesus is the Son of God (single) [True, duh]

What was Luke's profession? (double) [A doctor]

Name one of the two chapters in the Bible that lists the genealogy of Jesus (triple) [Matthew 1 or Luke 3]

Who was the son that boasted about seeing his father naked? (home run) [Ham, one of the sons of Noah]

As it turned out, Alicia and her boys, rather new to our fellowship, are BIG baseball fans and were game to play. In the bottom of the third, Gavin's team finally put his brothers' team away for good. For their efforts they were awarded the Teeny-Tiny Gold cup (a gimmick I picked up from Amazon for a couple of bucks). With the game over, I prayed and we headed downstairs for lunch.

Winners

The gathering was so simple – some laughs, a bit of levity and a fun learning experience (there were even a few “old” saints who struck out at the plate). And I think that's what I enjoyed most about the gathering – it was truly a cross-generational learning experience - grandpas, aunts, a 20-something gal, a young mom with three boys, and everyone in between. There was no home run king or queen or star recruit. Everyone was just working together vying for the Teeny-Tiny Gold Cup and enjoying the change-up from our usual Sunday morning routine.

Kaz and me

There was a moment during the fellowship lunch that followed that
made the day extra special for me. About noon, while all of us were eating away at our brats and potato salad, a guy walked in wearing shorts (it was like 15 degrees outside on Sunday). Honestly, I thought he had come with a family that had decided to visit us that day. But he came right up to me and said, "Remember me?" I drew a blank. "It's Kaz." He offered me his last name and then it all came back to me like a brick to the head. Back in the day Kaz was a hyper kid who bounced around every Wednesday night at our youth ministry. Honestly, a lot of energy was spent just trying to keep him dialed in. Admittedly, it often felt like – and was -  a losing effort. 

Kaz lives downstate these days, is married with three beautiful children. He owns his own power-washing company that specializes in homes and businesses. He's been clean and sober he tells me for at least ten years. He happened to be in the area and had decided to stop by just to say hello. "Pastor Jeff," he told me, "I can't tell you how much I'm grateful for this place. It's here where my relationship with God began. It's here where the foundation of my life was laid." Talk about a microphone-drop moment. I asked him to share that with our small party. He did and then he excused himself and left. Just like that.

Kaz sharing his benediction

Perhaps Kaz's appearance was a sign of sorts. Certainly it was a reminder to me. I'm pretty sure everyone on Sunday had a good time. Of course, we would have had a better time if more of us would have been on hand. But it is what it is. People get sick at times and now and again people travel. But even if the gathering had been a strike-out, Kaz's short visit made it altogether a home run. a reminder to me that as Paul once wrote to the Corinthians, "always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless" (1 Corinthians 15:58, NLT). Even, it seems, a pick-up game of Baseball Bible Trivia on a morning so cold that even the grill won't fire.