Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake, Iowa, throws out an enormous welcome mat

The church welcomes Synod School attendees even as it prepares for thousands of cyclists to roll into town

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Combined choirs from Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake, Iowa, and Synod School attendees offered two anthems during worship on Sunday. (Photo by Mike Ferguson)

STORM LAKE, Iowa — Members and friends of Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake, Iowa, supersized the church’s welcome mat Sunday, welcoming scores of visitors attending this week’s Synod School put on annually by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies even as they prepared further hospitality to some of the 29,000 people who were bicycling into town Sunday as part of RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

“We’re getting some pews dusted we haven’t had dusted in a while,” joked Tom Daniels, the liturgist during worship on Sunday at Lakeside. Daniels later offered a prayer “for people we know and people we hope to know.”

Pastor Jenn Olson uncorked acts of welcome not often seen in even the most outgoing churches. Once she’d completed a memorable children’s time helping the young people act out the Jacob’s Ladder account found in Genesis 28, Olson enlisted three young arms to throw rolled-up church T-shirts into the expanded crowd of worshipers.

Barb Wells (Photo courtesy of Lakeside Presbyterian Church)

Synod School voices joined members of the Lakeside Presbyterian Church choir to sing two anthems, “The Majesty and Glory of Your Name” and “Joy in the Morning.” Lakeside’s organist and music director, Barb Wells, said the combined choir ran through the two songs just once each an hour before worship. It went so well, “we had donuts” after the brief rehearsal, said Wells, a collaborative pianist at Buena Vista University, where Synod School is held annually. “Most musicians will work for food.”

In addition to leading worship, Olson accompanied some of the hymns with her flute. During her sermon, she invited worshipers to “take a trip,” and not a pleasant one: the journey back to three years ago, after the pandemic had shut the doors of most churches. “That was tough,” Olson recalled. “My husband and I learned quickly how to record a service in our living room with our naughty cat, Rocket, and our dog snoring in the background.”

Pastor Jenn Olson plays her flute during worship. (Photo by Mike Ferguson)

Closing the doors at church for so long was “as if we had announced God had left the building and won’t be back — anywhere,” Olson said. For some of the faithful, “apparently, God is to be found only at the appointed time on Sunday morning and only for an hour — unless that darn preacher talks too long. For so many people, their place to meet God and find community was unexpectedly ripped out of their lives, and they didn’t like it.”

Genesis 28 records Jacob “encountering God in a surprising place and in an unexpected way,” she said. While Abraham and Sarah were Jacob’s grandparents, “he was not what you would call an upstanding kind of guy,” Olson said.

Still, Jacob uses his pillow — a rock — to build a place he names Bethel, the house of God, “a liminal space where heaven and Earth meet,” Olson said. “How about you? Do you have a place where you can steal away and sit quietly and feel peace? For many of you, this sanctuary is your regular place to meet God. For many of you, Synod School is that space. Your thin place might be mountains, forest, the beach or a corner in your home. Maybe you’re one of those lucky folks who can find God wherever you are. Maybe you can give us pointers during coffee hour.”

Psalm 139, which was also read during worship, reminds us there’s “nowhere we can go to flee God’s presence,” Olson said. “Even during a global pandemic, God is still present. God can meet us in surprising and unexpected places — even on a computer screen or a visit standing six feet apart, even through a church newsletter, even right here in Storm Lake, Iowa, on RAGBRAI day.”

Throughout her lifetime, Olson has collected rocks she scoops up at “meaningful times and places.” A friend brought her a small rock from a visit to Jerusalem. “I like to hold that rock and imagine Jesus touched that rock,” she said. “He could have, right? My challenge to you, dear friends, is to find and go to your special place where you can meet God, the God who wants to meet you there over and over again.”

“Surely,” she said, repeating the title of her sermon, “the presence of the Lord is in all places everywhere all at once.”

Lakeside Presbyterian Church provided welcome and blessings to scores of visitors attending Synod School, as well as thousands of RAGBRAI participants. (Photo courtesy of Lakeside Presbyterian Church)

After the service during a coffee fellowship that included both sweet and nutritious treats, Olson called Synod School, which she’s attended for four years, “such a rich resource, meeting these people and developing friendships, and it’s just a few blocks away. Then we found out RAGBRAI was happening, and it created an opportunity to invite people to worship. Hopefully next year, it’ll be even more.”

A former kindergarten and first-grade teacher, Olson called the elaborate and fun children’s time “a time for children to connect with me” and talk about “how we are a family. I will say, ‘These are your grandparents, cousins and neighbors. They are there when you need them.’”

View the Sunday worship service at Lakeside Presbyterian Church here.