Faith Works 8-3-19
Jeff Gill
Looking along the midway
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Sometimes I worry that I've written a column before.
And I know for certain I've at least noted something of this sort in previous years, if not the whole reflection: I go pretty much every year to the Ohio State Fair at least once, and the Hartford Fair, our independent fair that includes Licking County, multiple times each August.
In fact, tomorrow I'll be helping lead an ecumenical worship service at the Hartford Fair, at 8:30 am in the Natural Resources pavilion on the northeast corner of the fairgrounds. Those with fair animals residing on the grounds for a week or more, concessioners, and even just passing visitors get a chance to stop and pray and give thanks and share community, out there north of Croton.
We get 4-Hers and carnies, cooks and ticket takers, parents and children and grandchildren, all glad to have a chance to include an act of worship in this week set apart, but a fair week which is one of the central parts of many people's lives.
That's always rewarding to help offer, and I'm looking forward to it, but there's also the whole experience of "walking the fair." You can also call it people watching, but for me as a Christian minister it has another overtone.
Out along the midway, whether in Columbus for the state fair or at the Hartford Fair closer to home, you see everyone. You pass by, you stand in line, sometimes you end up talking to people who are from everywhere, at least from among our everywhere. And many of them don't want a church service, aren't church goers at home, and quite a few have never seen the inside of one in person.
God loves them, every one. There is a divine purpose for each one to find and fulfill, or to reject and ramble away from that, in my faith, I believe causes God to simply come up with a new plan and purpose from that point forward . . . and on and on until we take ourselves into the presence of God at the end of all things, and we see and hear the greater purpose of everything, ourselves included.
How am I, how is the church, how might a witness to this hope and anchoring understanding be made to those I'm walking among? I don't have these thoughts as much in a mall at Christmastime, though I could. I might experience the same evangelistic tug at a football stadium or basketball arena, but it's at the state and county fairs that I always know that prayerful realization will walk along with me.
These are the people for whom Christ died, and many of them think no one in this life or the next care for them even enough to give up a minute of prayer for them, let alone lay down their lives for them. There are joys outside of the church, and many are celebrated at the fair, but a joy that lasts beyond the cotton candy delights of this life is something that I would argue everyone is looking for, in one form or another. How do we communicate effectively "the faith that is in us" to those looking for what it is we've been given . . . especially when that search is taking people into some pretty problematic dead ends and false corridors that will not come out where they want to go.
I know my limits as a preacher and a pastor. Some can hear a person like me speaking and teaching where others would give me a look and immediately dismiss what I have to say. We're each given a certain audience to which we're best suited, and we can all grow in understanding those to which we're not familiar, but few of us can, like the Apostle Paul, be all things to all people.
And some of my fairground reflection is not so much to seek the absolute answers for my ministry, my sharing of Good News, but to be chastened and reminded of my own limits, of how each church fellowship might just have its own unique place in God's plan.
In the middle of diversity and complexity and even more than a little confusion, I look for those small openings through which God can do great things.
And I make sure to have some fair food. God's at work along the food trucks, too.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he invites you to come to church on Sunday morning at the fair if you want! Tell him about your summer in faith and life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
