the rix mix

Last fall, "Pastor Dan" Schultz was called to a semi-rural United Church of Christ congregation in Wisconsin. As native cheeseheads, Dan & Mrs. Pastor, then residing in Lancaster PA, were delighted to return home.

The Salem UCC gig came with a parsonage, spacious yard, & picturesque graveyard. It also included large concrete barbecue pits, open air dining pavilion, storage shed, & a hugely popular annual chicken barbecue fundraising event. 1000+ servings of chicken, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, a river of coffee, & dessert table. Photos of the event are here. They weren't taken at peak hour. Church volunteers prepare an enormous quantity of food. Every oven in the church & parsonage is filled with stuffing - a hand-mushed recipe requiring a generous topping of ground pork. Institutional size cans of green beans, must be some obscure law mandating a side of green, at least they aren't generic. Can't blame them for using instant potatoes as gravy lakes. Mrs. Pastor notes that the dessert table in the photo does not reflect the actual abundance & variety available. The fires are supervised by "Smokey." although that's not how he got the name. The event takes place on a weekday.

Pastor Dan probably feels like he lives a double life. Online he's a plainspoken but erudite, widely-known progressive commentator & the leader at Street Prophets. In certain ways I think of him as my pastor. But he's also a real life minister of a mainline church comprised, so far as I can tell, of rock solid citizens of the upper midwest. It's a lovely church, the barbecue a great tradition, no more corny than a Holy Name Society pancake breakfast or a Methodist Strawberry Festival. I'd love to visit there. On Barbecue Day, of course.

Labels: culture, religion