Yesterday Tom and I attended worship at Grass Lake United Methodist Church.  Grass Lake, the town, is a village of just slightly over 1,000 on the shores of Grass Lake in between Ann Arbor and Jackson Michigan.  It is just south of where we have been camping for the last week.  Even though the village is small, it has a nice downtown, several restaurants, gas stations, and a grocery store.  The church is a beautiful brick building with two very tall towers.  The church was established in 1831, but I couldn’t see when the current building was built.

The worship service at the church began at 10 a.m. and we got there a little early, as usual.  We were greeted outside the church by several men, including the pastor, Rev. Den Slattery.  Rev. Slattery is a retired United Methodist Pastor and is currently appointed to serve this church.  He has served the church the last two years.  We went in the door off the parking lot (the “back door” of the church) and were greeted by several people as we entered and sat down.  There were about 120 people at worship and there was a nice mix of ages.

Music during the service was provided by a Praise Band.  There was a keyboardist and a guitar that wasn’t miked so you couldn’t hear it at all, but there were three singers and the congregation sang along and enjoyed the music.  The special music during the offering was a blue grass trio, which seemed appropriate since we were in Grass Lake.  The offering was at the beginning of the service, which we have encountered a couple of times but still view as unusual.  We also had communion (two weeks in a row!) which was in the middle of the service.

The sermon was at the end of the service and was part of a series on the book of Hebrews.  The congregation had worked up to Hebrews 12:18-28.  For the scripture reading, everyone stood and read the scripture from the pew Bibles together.  This is an interesting passage of scripture because it recalls God’s presence at Mt. Zion when he gave Moses the 10 commandments.  Rev. Slattery led us through Mt. Zion with Moses, Jerusalem (Mt. Zion) with Jesus and Paul, and the new Jerusalem (new Mt. Zion) that will be established when Christ sets up his kingdom on earth.

We enjoyed the service and the Grass Lake congregation was very friendly and welcoming.  After worship there was pizza (!) in the overflow area before people went to Sunday School.  During the announcements they had mentioned a chili supper fund-raiser coming up at the end of the month.  We were sorry that we won’t be in the area to return and enjoy the fellowship.