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APPENDIX
#12 — “We
Learn to be Free to Give!”
Broadview Lutheran
Church in Broadview, Montana has 27 members.
As Grace, one of the members of the congregations says, “Even if
you count all of the pregnant mothers as two, you would still come up with
an attendance of only 20.” Grace is unhappy, not
because of her church’s small size, but because others may think that
this small size must make the church less than exciting. Broadview doesn’t have a full-time pastor.
So it fell to Grace to fill out the annual congregational report
form that all churches are asked to send in to the synod office at the end
of every year. At the end of the
report, she added a note: “If this is the only information you have
about us, you will no doubt consider us a dead church.
We are small; we don’t have a full-time pastor.
Simply answering these questions doesn’t give me an opportunity
to tell you how exciting this church really is. “As one of our
part-time pastors once told us, ‘You have a choice of playing church, or
going through the motions of gathering on Sunday and singing badly and
praying and burying the older people members and thinking that when the
last one dies the church too will die, or you can really be the church.’ “We have decided to
be the church, and it’s exciting. But
how will you ever get that message if all you know about us is the answers
you get to the questions you have asked in this annual congregation report
form?” Judy has an answer for
Grace. She lives in
Broadview, too, and tells the following story: “Being mad at God for
giving me a handicapped son, I was not about to darken the door of any
church or worship a God who could do something so cruel to an innocent
child. Being raised in a
Lutheran church, I knew he was a God of love who works in mysterious ways. But this time he had gone beyond what was reasonable and had
pushed me too far. Having
anything to do with him was a thing of the past.
He had plans, however, plans for good and not for evil, to give me
a future and a hope. Since I
closed the door to any direct love from him, he showered me with his love
through my neighbors, many of them members of Broadview Lutheran Church. Not only have I found
loaves of bread in y mailbox, had hot meals delivered to my door, been
given free babysitting, plus numerous other gifts of good and money, I
have even been tricked into kindnesses. Thinking in my small
way, I could repay a little of their niceness, I volunteered to babysit on
a certain Wednesday, so they could have a morning of quietness with no
children at their knees. That
particular day was my birthday—a well-kept secret known only by me, or
so I thought. At the appointed time,
the kids came, but so did every lady in the entire Lutheran congregation.
I had to break into laughter as I watched them one by one come up
my walk, one carrying a coffee pot, another a beautiful cake, several
others laden with plates, cups and all the other goodies, that make for a
fun party. Of course, thee
were also gifts that had been carefully chosen with love.
They all kept telling me they had more fun planning my party than I
did in being surprised. The last act rekindled
a part in me that had been dead a long time.
Soon after, while sitting on a hill, I decided if the Lord wanted
back in my life it was all right with me.
Since then I’ve said many prayers and seen many answers.
By the time my little boy went to heaven, I was again strong enough
to accept what would be ordinarily unacceptable.
At the funeral a friend gave me a piggyback plant.
To me it was symbolic of how my community had carried me piggyback
during a time our precious Lord knew I either had to be carried or be
bruised beyond repair. I can now look back and see that a lot of good did come about
because of my crippled little boy. I
thank God not only for him, but for my community and for the members of
Broadview Lutheran Church. (A
story by two members of Broadview Lutheran Church, Grace Mosdal and Judy
Bicknell.) |