Barbecue Church

Today we attended the 250th year celebration of Barbecue Presbyterian Church (no, really... that's it's name). This is a church that Melody's family has been very much a part of through the years. It was pretty much fun.

The men of the church had been having a beard growing contest for the past several months leading up to today. Lots of the church membership were dressed in period costumes from the 1700s and such. There were bagpipes, kilts, the works. Members of various Scottish families (clans) marched in with flags of the various family tartans.

I've never cared for pipe organ music, but a guest organist was there and ripped through a tune called "Scotland Is Burning". I wanted to hear it again! That's a first for me. The service began to drag a bit when the prior ministers shared their memories. But it picked up again when the congregation sang a song called "O Barbecue" to the tune of "O Christmas Tree" (Melody and I shared a good laugh as we sang that one, especially the mysterious line in ancient gailic - my interpretation came out sounding suspiciously Chinese).

Then everyone - 500 everyones - gathered in the fellowship hall and in an outdoor tent for a meal of - you guessed it - barbecue! Afterwords, there were Scottish dancers doing "The Highland Fling". At one point my daughter turned to me and said "I LIKE this church!"

It was well worth the bother of having to wear dress up clothes. But next week, thankfully, it's back to blue jeans and our crazy rock-n-roll church - where I'll be playing guitar and singing for the first time!