From the Pastor’s Desk – July 2015

MAIN STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH – July 2015 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

One of our family’s greatest joys was summer travel. As school teachers, my parents got most of the summer ‘off’, so we had plenty of time to go lots of different ways.

There were two things that I always enjoyed about those treks:
visiting different churches—and reading the Burma Shave signs.

Thirty Days
Hath September.
April, June, And
The Speed Offender.
Burma Shave

Around Ohio, we traveled the back roads so many times, I could actually tell our locations and times-to-arrival by certain of those signs!

Ben met Anna
Made A Hit
Neglected Beard
Ben-Anna Split
Burma Shave

Highway 250—just west of Jefferson. Fifteen more minutes, and we’re home—home home at 334 Reed Road—with the treehouse, the TV, and pals Steve and Jim just up the street!

And I know it sounds strange for a then-10-year-old kid to enjoy going to different churches on vacation, but some of them were very historic:
a. Old North Church in Boston
b. Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg
c. National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
D. St. John the Divine, in the Big Apple (wherein is one of the first and foremost trumpet en chamades in an American church—and a forerunner organ stop to our own here at Main Street.)

But most churches were smaller, often remote; and each usually had an interesting memory. The first air-conditioned church I ever visited was First Methodist Church in Pompano Beach, Florida in 1959. Boy! One of the best churches I remember was a Congregational Church just outside Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We arrived just a minute or two before eleven o’clock, and we ambled in. The place was packed with folks, and they were already singing. An usher greeted us and seated us—down front, of course. Suddenly the hymn ended; the service ended; and then everyone began to smile and greet us. We hadn’t been there five minutes. What’s going on?! Worship began at ten o’clock in the summer. Best church we ever visited!
I hope you will take advantage of enjoying other churches and congregations while you’re ‘summering’. But I hope you’ll not forget us—here at home.

Pull into The Lot
Step from Your Car
Come in Where It’s Cool
And Here You Are!
Welcome Y’all!