By Rev. Ronald Jansen
The furnace at St. Paul’s, Otto is getting on in age and a bit on the iffy side. (but then aren’t we all?) This past Sunday it wasn‘t iffy, it just wasn‘t. So we had worship and Bible Class and Sunday school in 56 degree temperature. The service was accompanied by the muffled conversation and effort from the furnace room of a couple of men trying to get it going. By the end of the service the furnace was back to iffy. Actually, it didn’t seem too bad, except that my hands got icy cold. But I warned the folks that it wouldn’t be pleasant shaking my hand at the end of the service.
I remember another cold Sunday in church when I was a teenager. We were vacant and had services in the afternoon. I had the job of starting a fire in the wood furnace down in the unfinished basement. On one particular Sunday morning I arrived long before sunrise to find the temperature inside the church at -13.
Now the wood was supplied by the members. However, some had ignored the prescription about offering an unblemished sacrifice to the Lord. Instead of giving solid dry oak, some proffered punk poplar. So trying to find dry kindling was a problem. The wood wouldn’t catch. Finally, I got a fire going, but the punk stuff didn’t throw off much heat.
It took a lot to heat the high ceilinged structure with walls and ceiling covered in imprinted tin sheeting. All the heat came up from a single large grate located in the center of the church directly above the furnace. By the time church started it was only about 40 degrees. I recall it was pretty comfortable by the end of the service.
I might also mention that those afternoon services weren’t popular with us teenagers. We wanted Sunday afternoon for shoveling out a rink on Long Lake and getting in some hockey before going home for chores. However, nobody asked us. But then an evening service interfered with watching Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan show.
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