Tail Gate

Church. Grass. Wind. Sun. 2,000 folding chairs. Food. Snow cones. Smiles. Laughter. Root beer floats. Ice cube fights. Relationship. Wind. Shade. Music. Worship. Sermon. Conversation. Family. Wind. Life.

Once a year, we do church service outside, on the front lawn or a high school stadium.

The main purpose seems to be to hang out afterwards, eat food, and let the kids get away with eating more sugar than they do on any other day of the year that isn't a commercial holiday.

Each small group pulls up a vehicle to form a giant circle (think Oregon trail, circling the wagons) and sets up their own tail gate; pulled pork tacos, corn on the cob, snow cones, nachos, yogurt and granola. And, everyone else wanders around, eating whatever looks good and talking to whoever they can catch.

Often, the kids start with a snow cone, add an ice cream sandwich on top, wash it down with a root beer float, and top it off with a cookie and some cotton candy; while the adults go for the chicken wings and fresh baked bread.

This year, from my vantage point by the shaved ice machine, much of it looked like a never-ending "snow ball" and ice cube fight that simply ebbed and flowed with the pattern of the sun peeking out from behind clouds. Because, wind strong enough to send canopies flying during service rarely phases anyone in Tri-town, but, the minute the sun disappears, we wrap up in blankets and hunker down - it's not even 80 degrees out...we might freeze!

We create assembly lines of far more helpers than needed, because, hey, the kids want to work; they want to be a part of this thing that connects them to the rest of the church. (And, for the high schoolers, it is a chance to "prove" what ought to be painfully obvious, to prove that they love one another, that they love others, and that they are willing, a thousand times over, to put that love into action.) So, we use eight middle schoolers to make snow cones: an ice scooper, a button pusher, two snow cone formers, a cup separator, an ice provider, and two flavor pourers. The high school table is surrounded by kids waiting their "turn" to make root beer floats and hand out information cards, not because that many are required for either station, but because that many have volunteered.

They come in and out, sometimes leaving with a handful of ice or a carefully formed snow ball, sometimes coming back wetter than they left, but almost always smiling, because what kind of summer party would it be if you couldn't play in the snow?