As I mentioned last week we had a very sad blow and lost a beautiful lady,
whom I called Danielle. She had passed very suddenly and thankfully peacefully
in her sleep of cardiac problems. Loosing anybody is hard, and it seems that
the best of people seem to leave us way too soon. We are left with a hole in
our worlds, a void that cannot be filled. We learn to move forwards, we
continue to live our lives and continue to love and be loved, but nothing will
ever take that person's place. After her passing there was a funeral held for
her at one of the churches in the big city near my little town.
I don't go to church much (obviously). I attended a wedding recently at an Orthodox Ukrainian Church, which was a beautiful ceremony that I will have to tell you about sometime. Other than the odd wedding held inside a church (where we go in, watch the wedding and leave immediately afterwards) I haven't spent much time inside churches. We came to the funeral early to ensure that we were on hand in case the family needed help with anything and for the first time in almost a decade I actually took the time to look around.
One of the first things that I noticed was the Main foyer of the church. There were multiple bulletin boards lining most of the walls. On one board there were the big picture boards that you normally see lining the hallways of a high school, proclaiming "Class of....” These were pictures of every person in the congregation, as I looked I realized that the church had actually hired a photographer to come and take pictures of the congregation. This was on the board that stated "Our Congregation Welcomes You", just under the names of the pastors. Next to it is a list of the new members under a welcoming message. There were signup sheets for potlucks, for charity drives and for bible studies and the sheets were almost full.
As I stepped further into the main foyer I saw that they had a table with copies of the church newsletter with messages from the pastors, recipes and gardening tips, along with updates on the church and a quarterly financial report. A few paces behind that was a magazine type rack packed with brochures covering a wide variety of topics including (but not limited to) Divorce, Marriage, Suicide, Terminal Illness, Stress, Anxiety, Job Loss, Children. I peeked at a few of them, they had some advice, some bible passages as well as a list of websites for support groups that were Christian as well as secular.
The next room was their Worship Hall that held the main Altar of the Church along with the rows of pews, but just outside of the hall was another room; this room had in it a crib and a rocking chair. It was a reasonably spacious room, the size of a small office. When I went to the bathroom I noticed a change table with some extra wipes under it and there was a bottle of hand lotion on the sink.
The bathrooms were right off a large gathering room where they had set up folding tables and chairs, each of the tables had a nice runner and centerpiece on it. Just next to the big gathering room there was a large kitchen which was full of people… to be continued.
I don't go to church much (obviously). I attended a wedding recently at an Orthodox Ukrainian Church, which was a beautiful ceremony that I will have to tell you about sometime. Other than the odd wedding held inside a church (where we go in, watch the wedding and leave immediately afterwards) I haven't spent much time inside churches. We came to the funeral early to ensure that we were on hand in case the family needed help with anything and for the first time in almost a decade I actually took the time to look around.
One of the first things that I noticed was the Main foyer of the church. There were multiple bulletin boards lining most of the walls. On one board there were the big picture boards that you normally see lining the hallways of a high school, proclaiming "Class of....” These were pictures of every person in the congregation, as I looked I realized that the church had actually hired a photographer to come and take pictures of the congregation. This was on the board that stated "Our Congregation Welcomes You", just under the names of the pastors. Next to it is a list of the new members under a welcoming message. There were signup sheets for potlucks, for charity drives and for bible studies and the sheets were almost full.
As I stepped further into the main foyer I saw that they had a table with copies of the church newsletter with messages from the pastors, recipes and gardening tips, along with updates on the church and a quarterly financial report. A few paces behind that was a magazine type rack packed with brochures covering a wide variety of topics including (but not limited to) Divorce, Marriage, Suicide, Terminal Illness, Stress, Anxiety, Job Loss, Children. I peeked at a few of them, they had some advice, some bible passages as well as a list of websites for support groups that were Christian as well as secular.
The next room was their Worship Hall that held the main Altar of the Church along with the rows of pews, but just outside of the hall was another room; this room had in it a crib and a rocking chair. It was a reasonably spacious room, the size of a small office. When I went to the bathroom I noticed a change table with some extra wipes under it and there was a bottle of hand lotion on the sink.
The bathrooms were right off a large gathering room where they had set up folding tables and chairs, each of the tables had a nice runner and centerpiece on it. Just next to the big gathering room there was a large kitchen which was full of people… to be continued.
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