20 Days Before the '06 Fishing Opener

This morning at our church we had our “Annual Holy Humor Sunday”. This year’s theme was “Fishing Up North". We were told to come to church in the clothes we would wear to go fishing. Many people did that, and some even had their fishing poles along and their fishing hats, and one even was wearing his wading boots. We sang the hymns “Fishers of Men” and “Two Fishermen”, and the offertory played by our Hope Band was “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore”, (one of my favorite, favorite hymns!). The Scripture reading was John 21:1-8, about Jesus fishing with his disciples. They had fished all night long, not catching any fish. Then Jesus joined them and told them to cast the net on the other side of the boat and they caught so many fish, they could hardly reel the nets in. Pastor Michelle pointed out that often we fish one way and don’t think to try the ”other side” or another way.

During the Children’s Sermon, the children did some “fishing”. The offering was taken in “bait buckets”. The band sang a song about Minnesota mosquitoes (skeeters), written by Pastor Michelle, to the tune of Simon and Garfunkle’s “Sounds of Silence”. It was very cute.

We had a potluck after church (for you in Pennsylvania, that’s our Minnesota name for a “covered dish social”. We were asked to bring Minnesota "hot dishes" (also known back east as casseroles), jello salads and other foods we would bring along when fishing. We had some great hot dishes, and a great variety of various “jello” salads. We then had a contest for all that were in fishermen costume, and voted on the three best. It was hard to pick the three best, because there were so many good ones!

The opening prayer was really neat. We prayed it in unison. It was written by Pastor Michelle, and she gave me permission to print it on my post today…here it is:

“Oh God you are so great. We are glad to be here this morning worshipping you, especially since fishing opener hasn’t happened yet and it’s too cold to be out at the lake. We wanna thank you today for all you’ve done fer us. Thanks fer the fish, especially Northerns and Walleye. Thanks fer the lakes and trees and all that good stuff you gave us. Thanks fer waterproof boots and mosquito repellent, too; it helps. We’re sorry about the mercury and the loosestrife, we’ll try to do better. And fer Jesus too – thanks, and help us follow him better; he really knew how to fish. You know what we mean. Amen.”
-- written by Rev. Michelle Hargrave

For all you fishermen, take note there are only 20 days left before the ’06 fishing opener!