An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving Church Service

     One Sunday morning before Thanksgiving we headed off to church at Christ Community Church in Allegan, Mi.  We have been attending there for a few months.  Everyone was friendly and cheerful and they made you feel welcomed from the start.  They had a wonderful nursery program which was great for our 3 children that we had at the time.  This Sunday started off a little different from the rest.  We walk in the doors and Kathy Johnson, a middle aged lady,  heads right in my direction beaming.  "Jill, Come sit by me today." she demands. 

     I looked confused.  It seemed so adolescent the way she asked.  "Okay, sounds good.  You can sit next to us."  Then Kathy got a silly grin across her face and walked with us towards the main part of the church.

     As we turned to enter the church we see Pastor White dressed up as a pilgrim complete with a powdered white wig coving his bald head.  Looking around I noticed several of the elders were also dressed as pilgrims.  Brian and I, with Kathy following, proceeded to take our seats on the left side of the church.  As soon as Brian sat down Kathy quickly told him that he cannot sit there.  "Brian, you have to go sit over with the men on the other side of the church."  Brian looked around and seen several men scattered around the right side of the church and the women were all on the left side of the church.

     "I guess I need to go over with the other men, then." he smiled at us and headed over to his side of the church.

     Kathy knew all along what was happening that Sunday morning and knew we did not know what to expect.  I think she was delighted with our confused and awkward looks we gave as we tried to make sense of it all.

     Service was about to start and our pilgrim looking pastor followed by pilgrim looking elders caring long poles with feathers at the end entered the main part of the church and proceeded their way up to the front.  Pastor White goes to the alter and reaches for a shofar, a long ram's horn, and blows into it a few times signaling the start of service.  Then he reaches over to a huge hourglass and flips it over.  He explains that during church in the days of the pilgrims they would use the hourglass as a time and it would be flipped over several times during the pilgrims church.  He relieved us by saying he won't be flipping it over too many times. 

     Pastor White continued to explain how today we are having service just like the pilgrims would have in celebration of Thanksgiving.  "The men you see walking around are carring large poles.  As you see on one end there is a metal ball.  On the other side there is a feather.  Both sides will be used in case you start to misbehave or fall asleep during service today."  he announced.  The elders of the church smiled and showed off their poles to the congression and some even demostrated by wacking a teenagers head, not hard, with the metal ball or they would use the feather to tickle someone in the face.  During service they would walk around and randomly bop people in the head or tickle them. 

     It was told that during service it was customary for the sins of others to be read outloud for all to hear.  He pulled out a long scroll and started to read from it.  "Earl Gillette! It was discovered by someone that when you go fishing you use dead worms instead of live worms." Earl was an elderly gentlemen who fished every chance he could.  During the summers he would have a huge fish fry for the church with a lot of the fish he caught. Chuckles and giggles filled the church.

     "Doreen Chrystler!  Boxes of Duncan Hines cake mixes were discovered in your garbage last week after you claimed to have home made your cakes!"   More laughs echoed throughout the church.  Pastor White would name several people that were caught doing horrible crimes and make them confess their sins publicly. 

     After church service everyone congregated outside where there was a team of horses hooked up to a large hay wagon.  Children were put on the wagon and a few parents as well.  Pastor White led a small parade with the elders of the church following him around one entrance of the church, a quarter of the way around the block, in entered in another entrance of the church.  The hay wagon followed behind them.  Afterwards there was a small celebration and social gathering in the fellowship hall of the church. 

     It was a unique and fun service to have.  For the next few years that we lived in Allegan we looked forward to attending church there the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  He made history come alive if only for that moment.