First Church

This is the First United Methodist in Ames, Iowa. In many respects it is responsible for my becoming a teacher.

 A friend asked me to send her a picture of the organ in the front of the Sanctuary.  I had not been inside for years but when a friend asks you to do something you do it.  So the other day I drove down and went in the new (impressive) entrance and took some pictures.  It brought back memories.  There have been many changes over the years and it is at its most beautiful right now.  Truly a sanctuary.

 I remember sitting in this place with my mother for church, attending Sunday School and Wednesday Youth Fellowship.  I also addressed the Church at Youth Sunday. I may even still have the talk I gave somewhere. I remember the time when a man who was usually drunk was brought

My favorite stain glass window. 

into church by one of the retired pastors, and another time when the town street walker was in church and how the church "pillars" looked askance at her. And I remember thinking that it was compassionate of the minister to bring the (usually) drunk man into the church and to sit with him and being amused that the woman who Jesus would not have condemned was in the middle of the "church ladies" upsetting them.

When the sermon got boring I could revel in its beauty.

I went there until college and when I took my "gap" year and worked at Collegiate Manufacturing Company I was asked to teach the 7th graders Sunday School class.

I was a difficult teacher even then as I did not follow the curriculum but lead my students through a study of Judaism because Jesus was a Jew.

It was that experience that made me decide to become a teacher. I have never been sorry

When I came back from College I was lead to another Church and eventually joined the ranks of the Church Alumni but I will always have a fondness for the Church of my childhood and I thank it for the lessons it taught me and the guidance I received from its members.