Binnewater Union
Free Chapel

I haven’t added to this column for several weeks. As my next destination, I had set myself the challenge of attending a very small gospel church on a quiet county road, and I hadn’t been able to summon up the courage to visit it, fearing I might find myself a conspicuous outsider in a group of swaying, chanting gospel singers. Finally, today, I did pluck up my courage and attend service there. My fears were realized. I was conspicuous. But I was made very welcome. And I came to see what a genius America has for creating fellowship around the experience of attending church.

When you turn onto Binnewater Road from Lucas Turnpike, passing a sign advertising the church, you pass a herd of shaggy long-horned highland cattle. Coming from the other direction you pass a pheasant farm. The church itself is a simple small barn-like white building set right on the road, with a small bell tower over the entrance. It’s a very humble structure, set on a rickety foundation of bluestone and wooden posts.

Walking in the front door, past two window boxes of plastic flowers and a sign announcing that this was the Binnewater Union Free Chapel, I found myself in a skinny vestibule the width of the church. Facing me were two closed doors, one on either side. I had to nerve myself to open one of those doors, and face the community inside.

Inside was hubbub; animated conversation reigned. I snuck into a back pew and tried to look inconspicuous. No such luck. A woman came over to me, smiling, "Welcome" she greeted me, and she embraced and kissed me. Another woman, who I learned later was the Pastor’s wife, also came over and embraced and kissed me. Then the Pastor strode down the church and shook my hand, smiling broadly, welcomed me, introduced himself and asked me my name and where I was from. Shortly after starting the service he would announce there was a visitor present, point me out, announce my first name and prompt me to call out my family name and where I was from. Everyone clapped, and several people turned round to look at me, smiling. Your reporter felt a little sheepish.

The forty or so people present almost filled the little church. They included two families each with two children, plus some younger couples. The rest were mainly older. No minorities.

The interior could have been any local government office. Round the wall as wainscoting and up the wall behind the Pastor ran dark brown grooved wooden paneling. Overhead, banks of fluorescent light panels had been set into a low flat ceiling of white acoustic tiles. A few fussy light fixtures had been added for decoration. Simple double-sash windows ran down both sides, with red curtains hanging from brass rods. On the north side, alternate windows bore small air conditioners. Underfoot throughout the church stretched a carpet of a comfortable red.

A low rail separated off a small chancel area from the rest of the space, behind which was a small reading stand from which the Pastor conducted the service. This chancel looked as if a man had furnished it, probably the same man who’d chosen the dark wood paneling. Various kinds of banners were dotted around, announcing "Jesus," "Messiah," "Holiness unto the Lord," and "Jesus is Lord." On a piano to one side stood a small portrait of Jesus, bearded, looking directly at you out of the picture, matter of fact, not a suffering Jesus. Behind the Pastor was a simple cross, flanked by the American flag and one other I couldn’t recognize. I describe all this for you in detail, but once service started all this faded away, as unimportant to me as it obviously was to everyone else.

There were no kneelers; I noticed during the service that people remained seated during prayers and simply bowed their heads. I was supplied with two bibles: a Kings James red-letter version with a plate inside announcing who had presented it, and the New International Bible: also a book of hymns, "Praise! Our Songs and Hymns," published by Singspiration, words and full music, also with a plate telling who donated it. That was touching.

The Pastor, Al Schofeld, Jr., tall, vigorous, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and tie, began by welcoming everyone (and me). He addressed us very simply and directly. First he announced two upcoming concerts, which he pointed out were just a different form of worship. Then he moved smoothly into prayer, again very straightforward and direct, in which he comfortably joined biblical and modern references, juxtaposing "the road less traveled" with "straight is the way and narrow is the gate."

Then he announced a hymn. To one side of his reading stand was a boom box. He slipped a tape into it, and led us into the first song. Text by Fanny Crosby, 1820 to 1915. Then another song. Periodically the Pastor would stride to and fro and clap. These songs were very simple, mainly simple runs of notes up and down, very easy to follow. The song across the page from our second was labeled, "traditional spiritual" and it consisted of four verses identical except for one variation in wording in one of the four lines.

Then, the heart of the service. For twenty minutes, the Pastor joined with the congregation in bringing prayer to bear on people’s problems. Most of the problems were medical. He asked various people in turn how they were doing with the problems they’d announced previous weeks, that had been prayed for, and they reported on their progress. Then he asked for people’s current needs of prayer, and he made notes as quite a number of people told of their problems, again mainly medical. Someone asked for prayer for her granddaughter who had a serious concussion. Someone else was worried about their son going on a long plane flight. The Pastor announced that his own wife was going for tests Tuesday and Friday, and she said, yes, and he, the Pastor, was going for tests Tuesday and Friday. He blushed, had obviously forgotten or didn’t want it mentioned. Brought a laugh. Someone brought up the great need for good staff at the local nursing home she worked at. One person asked someone else, across the church, how her husband was, and a report was given. A young girl asked for her brother in Florida to be remembered. The Pastor asked for prayer for the Kennedy family, another member having just been lost at sea. The Pastor then led us in prayer in which he mentioned one by one the needs that had been expressed.

Following prayers, the Pastor played a stirring tape of a banjo rendition of "On my way to Canaan’s Land" while collection was taken. Then, just ten minutes short of the hour, he began his address.

Again, he spoke simply and directly to us, no special sermon-voice. His text was Genesis, where God tells Abraham and Sarah that she is to bear a child. Abraham and Sarah both laugh, Sarah because she doesn’t believe it, she’s so old. The Pastor pointed out that we often laugh at God’s offers of good fortune. We must learn to accept.

The sermon ran for a full twenty minutes. I found it engrossing. He connected Sarah’s situation with the problems people had announced earlier. He sorrowfully and sympathetically described young people looking for answers by wearing rings through various parts of their faces and being tattooed. He also warned the children present not to smoke, and one of the young boys present, halfway down the church, chimed in, said he’d been swimming and a man had come up, shown him a big scar, said it was because he’d smoked, and warned him not to start. The Pastor acknowledged him nicely, then moved on Mary Poppins, and the song "I love to laugh," and he talked of how important it was to laugh, And that when we laugh the laugh’s on God. Have a good laugh and you know God was there. The whole was rambling but it was consistently interesting, the Pastor very up, very boisterous and full of good humor, a cheer-leader for the community.

The service ended shortly afterwards, and I made good my escape.

I spoke afterwards to the Pastor. He’s been at the church for six years, and grown the community from eight to over seventy people. People come from as far afield as Rhinebeck across the river and Ellenville, he said.

The land had been deeded for church use in 1865. In 1901 the present building was brought on a flatbed truck from Kingston. A recent bequest has restored to the church its original three and a half acres, including an outdoor auditorium behind the church.

The church used to call itself full gospel, which the Pastor had to explain to me meant including both the Old and New Testaments. But he felt uneasy using the word "Full" because he felt nobody knew the full gospel, so he calls it just "Gospel." The church had been attached to the Nazarene denomination but chose to incorporate and become a free church.

I won’t be afraid of going to a gospel church again. I’m enormously impressed with the warmth and spontaneity of these services, and the almost total freedom people feel to express themselves and reach out to each other. I feel these churches are successfully recreating the very early house-church atmosphere Jesus seems to have intended. There’s no mention of the crucifixion, very little Pauline doctrine, no trinity, not even much mention of Jesus as distinct from God. Instead there’s a very simple appeal to a rather general Christian deity to grant answers to prayers in return for communal worship. All that’s missing is the pot luck aspect, people bringing food to share with one another.

And something else struck me today, very powerfully. Church service may be the last public and social place free of the reach of media. In today’s service, people were engaged with one another more directly than I think they can be in almost any other contemporary group activity. Taking a shower, reading a book, and attending church may be the last refuges left from the depersonalizing influences of the mass media.

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