WHATEVER WORKS!

Being a native Californian I was aware of the beginnings of Rev. Bob Schuller’s Drive-In Church in Orange County, at which he literally used the old fashioned (but then quite in vogue) Orange Drive-in theater as the base for his start-up church efforts. Cars parked in the same spots they did when a movie was showing, and sound boxes that were placed in car windows sent the occupants the very message that Schuller was preaching from atop the snack bar. From its humble beginnings it has grown to be something that everyone knows about, the Chrystal Cathedral.

What I learned in this morning’s newspaper is about a church of a different ilk, but one that I can’t discount just because I can hardly believe what I’ve read.

It’s another type of “drive-in” church but it could more accurately be called a “ride-in” church, because the parishioners ride their horses to church. Horse owners can tie up their animals at a metal hitching post or a wooden fence. Oh, and dogs are welcome too. The pastor preaches from an old-western wooden building façade in the town of Norco (south of us here in Mira Loma) and the pastor plays bluegrass hymns on his banjo.

The article doesn’t say how many parishioners are in attendance but does say that sometimes there are as many as 25 horses engaged in listening to the songs and the sermons. The pastor tells the newspaper that Norco, known locally as “Horsetown USA” (a self-given name), had people who didn’t want to come to church because they wanted to ride their horses instead. So seeking to give those people the best of both worlds, he began the outdoor “cowboy service.”

Not all horses are really interested in the service; some prefer biting each other and making lots of noise, so those owners drag a folding chair over to where their horses are eyeing each other. Decorum in the house of God is as important to horses as to their owners. ( And from my point of view, the horses may be better controlled than small children who now are pretty much allowed to run free anywhere making any kind of noise.)

Now who am I to say that God cannot be worshipped on horseback. I don’t know if the pastor’s vision is anywhere as big as Dr. Schuller’s was back in 1955, but people do move to Norco because horses are the focus of their life, and going to church on horseback is a big plus, the article says. I say more power to them. Whatever works!

Still, for us non-horsey people, we are still trying to get over our amazement at a Norco lady who loved riding after dark so much that she designed a contraption worn on her horse’s rear that had battery operated tail lights. This was so that cars approaching from behind could better see the dark-colored horses trotting along the road. Her next project, which I have never learned whether or not came to fruition, was horse head lights, apparently so the horse would know where it was going in the dark.

Now all this strikes me as exceedingly strange. And it makes me laugh, which is a good way to start the day, don’t you think?