October 6, 2013

  • Blessing of the Animals

    Today at Ballard First Lutheran we celebrated the Festival of St Francis, and for the second year in a row people were invited to bring their pets into the church for worship. There were a few more exotic pets last year, but certainly plenty of animals this year. Here is the choir in the narthex before the service.
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    First the Sunday School children sang "All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir." Étienne is on the far left, with his stuffed dinosaur Rover, and our friend Maddie is next to him. Maddie's mom was out of town this weekend so we took her to church with us. Carlton is still technically a Sunday School child, but he towers over the first and second graders so I don't make him go up and sing. He will start confirmation classes next year.
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    Pastor Laurie then invited everyone who had brought a pet to go back to the narthex and process in. Here you can see Pastor Laurie, Rover, and Étienne. Also, there was a Burnese Mountain Dog sitting in front of us. She barked enthusiastically after the choir sang!
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    Before the final hymn, everyone with a pet came forward for a blessing. You can see Pastor Erik is blessing all the pets. Everyone received a certificate attesting that their pet had been officially blessed!
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