A Wesleyan Pilgrimage Part II (or, the adventures of a Calvinist and a Wesleyan)

So, this post iss a "bit later" than I intended it to be...(see A Wesleyan pilgrimage from earlier in the month).

After checking out East Lake and eating at an excellent Thai food place in Decatur, GA, Mr. Baer and I loaded up the Pontiac Vibe at 6:15 Thursday morning and hit the road! Our travels took us through Macon, GA and on into Savannah. I had never been to Savannah before and was quite excited to check it out. Unfortunately, the first thing that greeted us from Savannah wasn't the Intercostal Waterway, or the beautiful old buildings, or the incredibly charming squares, but the smell.

I'm talking a smell that was real bad. Not just bad, but terrible. There are all sorts of phrase that come to mind to describe it and, let's just say they involve something dying in a rectum of a large animal.

Fortunately, the smell didn't stay with us for the rest of the day.

After exiting the highway we found our way to Wesley Monumental UMC. Wesley Monumental was designed specifically to be a "catherdral" to John and Charles Wesley and size-wise, it certainly didn't disappoint. The church looked like it had the seating capacity for around 1200, or so, had a balcony and a recessed choir loft with what appeared to be a more recent pipe organ installation. (The nine-foot Steinway was pretty cool, too!) The distance from floor to ceiling was 43 feet. (That combined with all of the hard surfaces made for a really nice acoustical environment.)

The church was lovely but the ceiling was in obvious need of repair. I am continually struck by how very plain the great majority of Methodist churches are. They did have two pretty stained glass images of John and Charles with the dates they were in Savannah listed but that was really about it on the inside. (The church has two spires out front that are very impressive.)

All in all, it looks like a great place to sing. I was, I must say, pretty disappointed in one of the clergy members of the church. I had called him a few days before we left stating that I would be in Savannah and would love to chat with him for even just a few minutes about the church and any possibilities of having a choir sing there and he never called me back. If you won't return a call to a fellow clergy member, I can't imagine how you treat strangers in your community...Of course, when we got to the church every door was locked but a very gracious gentleman whom I assume had some connection to the church let us in as he saw us wandering about the outside.

It's a sad state of affairs when the church locks it's doors to the community. It is an even sadder commentary on things when you try to make an appointment just come in the church and the pastoral leadership won't even return your phone calls.

This lack of hospitality irritates me because we have a great many people who come to Travis Park and want to see the sanctuary and I am always honored to visit with them and to show them around. It's not like people are flocking to most down-town mainline Protestant churches these days, so if they call trying to make an appointment to come in, it couldn't hurt to return the call!

Oh well, anyway, Ryan and I then took the little self-guided tour of Wesley's sites (which include a square with a large statue of Wesley, several places where he lived, and the site of his first sermon, the text of which being I Corinthians 13) and had lunch on the Savannah River at Huey's (a New Orleans-style kinda place with good po-boys and bengiets).

After kicking it on the river for a bit we hopped back in the Vibe and drove to St. Simmons Island to check out Epworth-by-the-Sea, a 92 acre Methodist retreat center, replete with a motel, youth lodgings, softball and basketball areas, meeting rooms, and the largest annual conference museum dedicated to the Wesley's. We met with my new friend Tiffany and worked out a pretty sweet deal for things to come.

Following our time at Epworth-by-the-Sea (named after John and Charles boyhood home in old England) we set out to try to find a beach. After a several mis-guided attempts to find some sandals we came across a CVS and got directions from to the beach. The cashier at CVS, after giving me directions, promptly informed me that she "doesn't go to the beach." I found that to be really funny! If you live on an island and don't go to the beach, you've got a pretty narrow world-view, no?

On our way to the beach we stopped at the lighthouse on the island. This turned out to be a pretty cool stop because, for the low, low, price of $6 you can climb to the top of the lighthouse (104 feet later). I had never been in a lighthouse before. The view was incredible!

Well, to wrap this thing up, we finally found the beach and it was sweet! The water was cool but very tolerable for October. We soon split St. Simon's and headed back to Savannah and chilled a bit on Tybee Island before calling it a night.

The next morning we headed back to Atlanta and Ryan delivered an excellent sermon in the chapel at Columbia Seminary.

I think I would really enjoy the opportunity to go back to Savannah and really chill there for a few days. The weather was nice, the people friendly (except for the unnamed Methodist minister), and the architecture was fantastic!