People Met = 9
We took a rest day in the Harpers Ferry area. Part of the reason was for me to give the sermon at the Christian Community Church of St. Paul’s seven miles south of Harpers Ferry. We’ve known about the four branches of the UCC that merged together: Reformed, Evangelical, Christian and Congregational. This church belonged to a fifth category, a recently formed community church that wanted to align with the UCC. Pastor Roland England had something to do with that; his religious heritage is with the Reformed Church.
Pastor Roland and Nancy England
Pastor Roland and his flock were able to buy a defunct Lutheran Church for one dollar and some start-up money from the UCC enabled them to go from there. Every Sunday morning at 8:30 the pastor, his wife Nancy, and parishioner Shawn gather to start cooking a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries and scrabble. A handful of parishioners come to eat breakfast at 9:30 and then a handful more come to join them at 10:00 a.m.
The service was the most informal I’ve seen yet. Pastor Roland was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt; no robe or collar. There were no bulletins for that morning’s service, though the pastor made sure people got the Easter service bulletin if they missed it. My sermon was based on Micah 6:8, with a little diversion to the two great commandments, and went over well. Afterwards parishioners and pastor left, leaving the remaining guest hikers to close up the church and the fellowship hall.
In the afternoon we used the wifi available at the Harpers Ferry Visitor Center. Pat was most accommodating in getting us setup. I got caught up the best I could, but it looks like I’m going to fall further behind in posts until we hit the DC area.
Towards the evening we stayed at a campground, comped to us by the River Riders company. In addition to managing a campground they offer canoeing, kayaking, rafting, biking and even a zip line course. We had a nice chat with campground host Montana in the evening. The next morning we dropped in at the River Rides office to thank them for helping us out.
River Riders Crew
