Our little country church, Bethany Lutheran, is on the verge of a major facelift in the form of new carpeting. The current carpet has been in place for 45 years so the church ladies made it a mission to replace it. That’s going to happen over the next two days.

To make that happen it was necessary to remove everything from the church innards because the carpet people do not move ‘stuff’. Therefore, it fell on the shoulders of a few old guys and as many young people as they could muster, to move 27 pews. the altar, the pulpit, and the lectern leaving the current carpet unlittered with heavy objects. They wanted the piano removed, too, but after moving everything else there wasn’t enough strength remaining in the entire crew to pick it up. So, it stayed. There’s a plan afoot to have someone available to roll it out of the way as needed tomorrow.

To commemorate this effort, we took a couple of photos using those taken of the iconic PDX carpet, before it was replaced not long ago, as an example of how to properly make it special. I’m not sure that was accomplished, but we had a bit of fun doing it. The tools were necessary to unbolt the pews from the floor. Not all the bolts came out willingly.

Not everyone who participated is included in the photos and I regret that. Nor do I have photos of the pews leaving the building because my camera was in the church while I was in one of the two large semi trailers that were graciously loaned to us by LC Hall trucking of St. Helens.

It’s a little weird to have the sanctuary empty, and it looks a lot smaller. However, if everything goes as planned, all the pews will be back in place for service this coming Sunday. How that goes will decide whether or not I show up for service on Sunday because I assume responsibility for making sure the pews are properly aligned and that all the pews are returned to their original spots to ensure that those who attend regularly get their assigned seats back. At this point I’m pretty sure I can get them lined up fairly well, but I can say with confidence that no one is getting their old pew back except by accident. It’s time for them to step out of that comfort zone and sit in someone else’s seat.