Woodlawn Christian Church Sesquicentennial Celebration 9/13/15

Sign in front of the abandoned Lohrville Christian Church
Lohrville, Iowa

Well this past Sunday, September 13th, 2015 was the official 'Sesquicentennial Celebration' here at Woodlawn Christian Church.  One hundred and fifty years ago on the 6th of September, a group of men and women came together and started a small church which would eventually evolve into the 'Woodlawn Christian Church' that we know and love today.

We had a good turnout for the service and it was a great event. Originally, we'd hoped to worship outside that morning, but it was a bit too cool for some of the members so we opted to stay in the Sanctuary.  After the service, we of course had a potluck luncheon.  The Church provided the meat and buns and the side dishes were all provided by the members of the congregation.  As always, it was a great feast and I for one certainly ate far, far too much food.

Julie Gibson our area Associate Regional Minister, was here at Woodlawn Christian in order to join in on the festivities.  It was great to have Julie here with us again, she has been such a steadying force for the church as it went through it's long and frustrating search for a new minister; and we're very happy to maintain that relationship with her now that hopefully things are off on a more stable footing.

Woodlawn Christian Church, Sept 13, 2015
Lake City, Iowa
Pastor Roy Karlen

Prior to the service starting, myself along with a few of the men decided to go ahead and try to locate the 'rumored' time capsule that was supposedly buried by one of the Vacation Bible School classes back in 1974.  We suspected that it was buried under a rock that is situated in front of the old tree where so many of the classes back then would take their class photographs.

Lonnie Daisy, Jeff Frank & Clyde Westcott
Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, IA

Armed with three shovels and a giant pry bar we managed to dig up the rock.  We immediately realized that just as an iceberg conceals most of it's mass, this rock was a hidden giant.  We were able to dig the hole in such a fashion that we were able to roll the rock over and check underneath.  After going down several additional inches (digging made difficult by a considerable number of large tree roots) we found nothing.  By this time a member had shown up with a metal detector and we checked the bottom of the hole.  There was no response from the detector.

We continue to gather details as more folks are discovered who remember the burial of the capsule.  Just this morning Evelyn Johnson told me that her husband Darryl believes he remembers where it is buried.  Darryl is recovering from an illness right now and hopefully he'll soon be strong enough to come to church and point out the exact spot.  We haven't given up hope of finding the capsule quite yet.  Another individual was able to tell us that it's buried in an old metal ice cream bucket.  Hopefully, we'll be lucky and the metal won't have completely corroded away after forty one years of being buried.

I've attached to this post the video of the Children's Sermon above, along with the video of the Sermon itself which is linked directly below.

The photo of the sign at the very top of the blog today, is the sign that sits in front of the old Church of Christ in Lohrville, IA.  The building is no longer being used as unfortunately the congregation voted to close a number of years ago.  The building and the land belong to the Region and just yesterday I was successful in purchasing the sign from the Region.  We will be moving the sign over to Lake City in the near future.  There will be no restoration to the sign as it's in a magnificent state of weathering as it currently is.  We will investigate how to keep it from deteriorating any farther while still keeping it's absolutely beautiful state of aging intact.  I just love this old sign and I'm so very excited that the Church Council went along with their crazy Pastor and allowed me to negotiate for it's purchase.  It's wonderful that this old sign can once again serve a Disciples of Christ Church in the nearby area.

As always, I thank everyone who has wandered through this humble little blog and I hope you've found something enjoyable or perhaps something useful to you in your spiritual journey.  May the good Lord bless you and guide you along your path.

In Christ,
Roy

Sermon 9/6/15 - "Those Difficult Verses in Scripture"

Trinity Lutheran Church, Reliance, South Dakota

This past Sunday's sermon covered the verses found in the Gospel of Mark 7:24-30.

Mark 7:24-30

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

These verses are some of those that make one want to say "really Jesus, seriously...".  They're difficult because of course Jesus sounds like... well like a jerk to be honest.  In my sermon, I encouraged everyone to not take the easy way out of this problem.  The easy way out of course is the all too common and wrong in my opinion, statement that "Jesus is just testing the woman", I'm afraid it's not that easy nor that painless.

We need to bear in mind that the Gospel of Mark is (of the four canonical gospels) the one where we find the most 'human' Jesus.  As I say in the sermon, here we find Jesus letting his 'human' show.  It may be a more difficult reality for us, but ultimately it also speaks more to us as human beings.  Here we find a Jesus that is also human, one that we can relate to far better than we are used to being able to.

Well, that's all I'm going to say about it... to find out more you'll just have to watch the video and hear the sermon.

As always please remember to "be a blessing to someone today!"

In His Love and unending Grace,
Roy

PS: This coming weekend we will be celebrating our 150th 'birthday' for the congregation here at Woodlawn Christian Church.  We're all very excited and looking forward to having an outdoor service and then a picnic afterward.  One of the other things that we're doing to celebrate is collecting items to bury in a 'time capsule' to be exhumed in the year 2040.  This evening while I was getting ready for my workout the doorbell rang and I found Lonnie Daisy at the front door.  He had just found out tonight from his younger brother that the Vacation Bible School class back in the summer of 1974 had buried a time capsule in the yard near the Chapel.  Lonnie had come down to look near where his brother told him it was buried and not too far away he discovered a rock just showing out of the ground near the base of an old tree that many of the old vbs classes had taken their class photos in front of.

Long story short, not many people knew of this 'time capsule' being buried and even fewer are still members.  We'll be investigating further and hopefully, we'll find this long forgotten 'time capsule' it will be great to see what a group of youngsters felt they wanted to leave for the future.  It's been buried in the Church lawn for 41 years and if Lonnie hadn't mentioned to his brother that we were getting ready to bury another time capsule, this one might have remained there for only God knows how many years.

I'll report back...

Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, Iowa
Pastor Roy Karlen's photograph

Sermon from August 30, 2015 - Pastor Roy Karlen - Woodlawn Christian Church

I've attached the video of the sermon from last Sunday at the bottom of this blog post.  It's in two parts because the camera stopped once and rather than messing around and merging them I just decided to put them up separately.

This past Sunday our dear friends Greg & Terri Powell came over to see us in Lake City.  We had a chance to go out to dinner with them on Saturday evening and also to enjoy breakfast and lunch with them Sunday before they had to head back to South Dakota.

It was wonderful to get to spend some time with them and I'm very appreciative that they traveled so far just to see us and to come to worship with us on Sunday.  Poor Greg didn't realize that if friends or family come to see me that they often end up being used as a sermon illustration.  

I hope this short blog post finds you all well and blessed.

In His Grace,

Roy