How We Picked a Church to Attend

Marilyn and I started dating at Trinity Episcopal, the architectural masterpiece in Copley Square, Boston. Later we were drawn to a decidedly more humble Presbyterian church in Cambridge where our Christian friends gathered and where we were married. So, when we moved to Schenectady, it was natural we would seek out a Presbyterian church.

The people at Orthodox Presbyterian were friendly enough, but we didn’t sense that was the place for us. The next Sunday we went to Union Presbyterian where, instead of the regular service, they read a work by Walt Whitman and hardly mentioned Jesus at all. The State Street Church building looked like it was closed, so we never really investigated them. That left First Presbyterian - the big, old line church in the historical Stockade district. They had an excellent reputation: large budget, active youth ministry, many supported missionaries, and their Senior Pastor was Dr. Herbert Mekeel. Dr. Mekeel was respected far and wide; he was learned, he was dynamic, and he was an excellent preacher.

Therefore, the Sunday we nestled down in a forward pew, we were expecting great things. After Dr. Mekeel’s sermon, however, Marilyn and I just stared at each other. We were bewildered. The man was totally incoherent; he rambled all over the place and never did make a point we could discern. We figured he was beyond his time and the community was just being kind to him until the men in white jackets could arrive. Seriously, it was that bad.

The next week we looked under Churches, Episcopalian, in the Yellow Pages and trotted off to the first one listed - Christ Church. We never got any further. Father Hio’s ecclesiastical taste ran to high church Anglo-Catholic. During prayers, he even asked blessings on the Bishop of Rome! It hadn’t been our experience, but his love of Jesus did shine through. We also became fast friends with the assistant rector and his family. The choir master was a part-time announcer on the local classical music station and thought God deserved only the best, which is to say, fine classical music. Again, it was a different experience for us, but we thoroughly enjoyed singing under Scott’s direction. The seventies were an exciting time of renewal in the Episcopal Church and Christ Church was right in the middle of it. It was the center of our spiritual and social life and we were richly blessed in both.

Several years later we attended a Lenten series given at St. George’s, the Episcopal Church in the Stockade. The program was late starting and, after a bit, the Rector came out and announced the scheduled speaker had missed his plane flight. So as not to disappoint the gathered faithful, he had taken the liberty of going next door to First Pres and asking Dr. Mekeel if he would fill in. Marilyn and I immediately tried to figure if it was possible to make a graceful exit. It wasn’t, so we were stuck. Well, Dr. Mekeel gave one of the most delightful talks we have ever had the privilege of hearing. He was erudite. He was funny. And he delivered an appropriate message with spiritual substance and insight.

So what happened that Sunday so many years before? Instead of Pentecost where everybody understood each other, we experienced the opposite, a modern day Tower of Babel. The Holy Spirit had played the part of the Shadow and clouded our minds. The Lord had blessings for us and they lived at the first Episcopal Church listed in the Yellow Pages. He wanted to make sure we got there with no detours. Our God did that for us.

I have heard many stewardship talks, and I expect you have too, where one’s contribution to the collection plate is said to be correlated with the material rewards one receives. Just last week there was an article in the NY Times about the Rev. John Osteen of Houston, the latest in a long line of prosperity gospel preachers. What an impoverished vision of God’s Love they have! Do they really believe God’s imagination is limited by what appears on Wal-Mart’s web site? There certainly have been times in Marilyn’s and my life when we needed something practical like a job and we knew the job we received was from Above. I know many of you can testify to similar experiences. But they hardly compare with the gifts we receive as a part of being in fellowship with Christ’s body and with Jesus himself. Remember the story Fr. Chuck told of the Anglican priest in Africa who was stuffed into a hot house and left to die? In the hell of that sealed tomb, he felt a cool breeze. Could there be any more profound – or personal – blessing than that? Our God does that kind of thing. May He bless us in the unique ways He knows we need.

James Kitler, Treasurer