November 12th & 13th—7 AM to 1 PM

At my home church in Texas when I was growing up, we would hold a “Spring-Cleaning” of the Facility. We had gorgeous wooden pews that had only been modernized by the addition of removable cushions. These pews had very intricate carvings on them that loved to trap dust and fingerprint grime. Every year, a large number of the church members would gather to help give these pews the care and attention that they deserved. This was my first exposure to Murphy’s Oil Soap as a few people lovingly applied it to every inch of those pews.

Fast forward to when I was a young adult, and we were opening a brand new facility for that same congregation. It was very exciting and it seemed every congregant showed up to get the place ‘Spic and Span’ for the dedication of the buildings on the following Sunday. The Murphy’s Oil Soap was there being generously applied for the first time to the all-new woodwork. It seemed every member had brought their vacuums from home; the new carpet had tons of lint from the construction as a result of its manufacturing process. Several people ran out of their disposable vacuum bags as they were stuffed with these blue fibers from the new carpet.

Just a few months ago, I showed up early to the 8:00 am service in the Chapel. Jan & Brian Baker were struggling mightily to cleanup some grey lint from a couple of the pews. They were using packing tape to pick up these bits of lint as best they could. I took the roll and peeled back a length of the tape, reversed it to have the sticky side outward, and made a fair approximation of a lint roller. We almost used up that packing tape to make the place presentable for the upcoming service.

I am sure this never happens to any of you, but there are times when my mind will wander during a service (never during the sermon—mind you), and my eyes are drawn to those accumulations of fingerprint grime or lint. I always tell myself that I will come back and clean that up. Well, if any of you ever have those feeling or just want to make the place the best that it can be for new folks seeing the place for the first time—now is you chance: The Lakeview Board of Trustees is sponsoring a “Fall-Cleaning” of the Facility. I promise to have plenty of Murphy’s Oil Soap and lint rollers on hand for our gorgeous pews. There is only so much that our Janitors can do during their cleaning time—sometimes that ends up being only a “Lick and a Promise”.

An old friend (really our #4 son’s old girlfriend that we have stayed close with) is coming to stay with us for a few days in October. I have been given my marching orders to transform our junk room back into a guest bedroom for her to be able to stay in. Trust me when I tell you that our home is not a showplace, but it will come close by the time that she arrives.

How much more should we want Lakeview to be a showplace when new (to us) children of God arrive to check out our congregation. We hope you can join us in this effort. No amount of help is too small. Come as you can and there will be some service that you can provide. The times that we have set aside for this is;

Friday, November 12th from 7 am to 1 pm, and then Saturday the 13th from 7 am to 1 pm. We look forward to seeing you there.

Landon Grote – Co-Chair of Lakeview Board of Trustees