Words of welcome from the font

Submitted by Ken Evers-Hood, Tualatin Presbyterian Church, Tualatin, Oregon.

Every Sunday after the prayer of confession I walk to the Lord’s table, pick up the pitcher, walk down to the font located at the entrance into the sanctuary, pour out the water into the font and pronounce the words of absolution there. My predecessor initiated all this, and I’ve been more than happy to maintain the practice.

There is a woman, Ellen, who has been worshiping with us for two years now. She’s incredibly intelligent and faithful, however she’s rightly nervous about churches and the harm that’s often been committed by us or in our name. In our last newsletter article, though, she actually shared this with the congregation: 

Since moving to Oregon in 1987, I avoided church, mostly because, like a lot of people, I felt okay with God but differed with "church people." I didn’t fit in. In 2000 I joined a Lake Oswego law firm as an attorney, while I was pregnant and going through a divorce. After several years of raising a child on my own while succeeding in a very unforgiving profession (failure wasn’t an option), I was physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted, desperate for peace and rest, and compelled to admit that I couldn’t carry on alone anymore and needed God’s help. Sometime in 2005 I decided to visit Tualatin Presbyterian Church, because I knew I could speak and understand Presbyterian. The first time I came, tears welled when I heard Ken say, "God has already removed your guilt and your shame." I realized how weighed down I was by guilt and shame — from a failed marriage, from feeling like I was letting my daughter down because earning a living was taking so much of my time and energy, from wanting to do and be so much more than I was.

She ends the piece saying she’s beginning to think she might be able to be a “church person” again after her time with us.

What I loved is that what moved her more than anything wasn’t anything I said in a sermon — it was the words of absolution offered from the baptismal font.

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