The Reality Star
We are members of a small church in a no-name town in Maryland. It is an awesome church with a diverse and dedicated membership, and we've made many friends there. Since just before we began attending, it has been experiencing a revival, with many new faces and several new members. The Sunday gatherings are still relatively small, with only around fifty people, but that's probably around twenty more than they had a year and a half ago. It's not unusual for us to have visitors, but with such a small congregation, it's easy to tell who they are, and the members normally line up to greet them after the service if they didn't have a chance to meet them before.
Part of the reason we have regular visitors is just our location--we are in the DC area and we're easy to get to from Washington. But in the past year and a half, we've also become associated more closely with Capitol Hill Baptist Church and its pastor and his ministry, 9Marks. So anyone who uses the 9Marks Web site to search for a church can find us. We stand out because there aren't many churches like us in our area.
Last Sunday I was in between rehearsing for my cello prelude and offertory and getting in place for the service when I passed by a young couple whose faces were unfamiliar to me. I smiled and said hello, but I didn't have time to stop and chat. As I sat in the service across the sanctuary from them, I was thinking how although we had several young families with children in our church, they looked too young to have kids, and I wondered whether they would be comfortable or feel like they could fit in at a church with few other couples at their stage in life.
After the service Harvey told me he wanted us to go and meet the couple. There was already a crowd around them, so we gathered our things together as we waited. Next thing we knew they were heading out of the sanctuary--not to leave, but to go to the nursery. So they did have kids! We had to go pick up Judah as well, so we followed them there. As we collected our kids in the nursery area, we began to talk to the new couple, Harvey to him and I to her. She showed me her three kids and I showed her my four ("Wow, four!" is usually people's reaction); she told me she was from Arkansas, and I was excited to tell her we were from Oklahoma. She told me their family had moved to the area a few months ago for her husband's job, and we kind of heard the guys talking and realized that her husband was working for an organization that Harvey's boss is involved with. Then they invited us over to their house for lunch, along with our close friends and their family. We protested at first--"Are you sure? We have four kids, you know!" But the man, Josh, said, "Well, I'm the oldest of nineteen, so it's not a big deal!" Hmmm, oldest of nineteen. What? We just kind of laughed and we got their address and number so we could meet them there after a brief meeting we had at the church.
Harvey and I went back to the sanctuary for the meeting, and Harvey told me whom we'd been talking to: Josh and Anna Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame! Harvey and I had never seen the show, but Harvey said he had read an article in the Post recently about how Josh and his family had just moved to Washington for a lobbying job with the Family Research Council, and I guess as he was talking to Josh, he figured it out. (Maybe the "oldest of nineteen" comment gave it away.) We found out later they had found our church on the 9Marks Web site I mentioned earlier.
So after the meeting we drove to their house, which is not far from the church. Josh welcomed us in, and Anna was at work in the kitchen making spaghetti with stuff they'd just picked up at the store. I helped in the kitchen, and the guys talked politics in the living room. They were as sweet as could be, genuinely happy to have us there. We didn't ask many questions about the show, which they're still involved in, but eventually, after lunch, we got to hear the story of the show from the beginning. It was so interesting to hear how the show came to be, sparked by his father's running for U.S. Senate, of all things, back when they "only" had ten kids. Josh also talked about the tension between the family's faith and the secular leanings of the network, how the family refuses to hide their light under a bushel because that's what makes them who they are.
We stayed all afternoon, and on the way home I told our kids about the show. When we got home we found the show on Netflix, and we watched a few episodes with the kids. They noticed how a clock they saw on the wall of Josh and Anna's house on the show was the same clock we had seen on their living room wall earlier. They were a little confused about who was who between Michelle and Jim Bob and their kids and Josh and Anna and their kids (Who's the mom? Who's the son? Who's the baby?)--understandably! But I realized it will be a good show to watch all the way through as a family--a show about a family who shares our values with (as far as I know) no objectionable content for us to worry about.
My friend Stephanie from church has been a fan of the show for a long time, and she didn't know Josh and Anna had moved here, so she was shocked and confused when she saw them at our church Sunday morning. She said she was looking for cameras. And then when she began talking to them, she felt strange because she was asking them their names when she already knew them--and already knew from the show all the introductory information you normally ask someone you've just met. She said she also noticed lots of things in their house that she'd seen on the show, and it was all very odd for her.
I knew that living in Washington we would probably encounter some celebrities--celebrities in the political world. And we have spotted some here and there; Harvey's even met a few. But little did I know that living in DC would put us in the path of a family of reality-show stars, not on the Hill but at our little church, not just to meet them but to sit in their living room, to share a meal with them. What a world.
Part of the reason we have regular visitors is just our location--we are in the DC area and we're easy to get to from Washington. But in the past year and a half, we've also become associated more closely with Capitol Hill Baptist Church and its pastor and his ministry, 9Marks. So anyone who uses the 9Marks Web site to search for a church can find us. We stand out because there aren't many churches like us in our area.
Last Sunday I was in between rehearsing for my cello prelude and offertory and getting in place for the service when I passed by a young couple whose faces were unfamiliar to me. I smiled and said hello, but I didn't have time to stop and chat. As I sat in the service across the sanctuary from them, I was thinking how although we had several young families with children in our church, they looked too young to have kids, and I wondered whether they would be comfortable or feel like they could fit in at a church with few other couples at their stage in life.
After the service Harvey told me he wanted us to go and meet the couple. There was already a crowd around them, so we gathered our things together as we waited. Next thing we knew they were heading out of the sanctuary--not to leave, but to go to the nursery. So they did have kids! We had to go pick up Judah as well, so we followed them there. As we collected our kids in the nursery area, we began to talk to the new couple, Harvey to him and I to her. She showed me her three kids and I showed her my four ("Wow, four!" is usually people's reaction); she told me she was from Arkansas, and I was excited to tell her we were from Oklahoma. She told me their family had moved to the area a few months ago for her husband's job, and we kind of heard the guys talking and realized that her husband was working for an organization that Harvey's boss is involved with. Then they invited us over to their house for lunch, along with our close friends and their family. We protested at first--"Are you sure? We have four kids, you know!" But the man, Josh, said, "Well, I'm the oldest of nineteen, so it's not a big deal!" Hmmm, oldest of nineteen. What? We just kind of laughed and we got their address and number so we could meet them there after a brief meeting we had at the church.
Harvey and I went back to the sanctuary for the meeting, and Harvey told me whom we'd been talking to: Josh and Anna Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame! Harvey and I had never seen the show, but Harvey said he had read an article in the Post recently about how Josh and his family had just moved to Washington for a lobbying job with the Family Research Council, and I guess as he was talking to Josh, he figured it out. (Maybe the "oldest of nineteen" comment gave it away.) We found out later they had found our church on the 9Marks Web site I mentioned earlier.
So after the meeting we drove to their house, which is not far from the church. Josh welcomed us in, and Anna was at work in the kitchen making spaghetti with stuff they'd just picked up at the store. I helped in the kitchen, and the guys talked politics in the living room. They were as sweet as could be, genuinely happy to have us there. We didn't ask many questions about the show, which they're still involved in, but eventually, after lunch, we got to hear the story of the show from the beginning. It was so interesting to hear how the show came to be, sparked by his father's running for U.S. Senate, of all things, back when they "only" had ten kids. Josh also talked about the tension between the family's faith and the secular leanings of the network, how the family refuses to hide their light under a bushel because that's what makes them who they are.
We stayed all afternoon, and on the way home I told our kids about the show. When we got home we found the show on Netflix, and we watched a few episodes with the kids. They noticed how a clock they saw on the wall of Josh and Anna's house on the show was the same clock we had seen on their living room wall earlier. They were a little confused about who was who between Michelle and Jim Bob and their kids and Josh and Anna and their kids (Who's the mom? Who's the son? Who's the baby?)--understandably! But I realized it will be a good show to watch all the way through as a family--a show about a family who shares our values with (as far as I know) no objectionable content for us to worry about.
My friend Stephanie from church has been a fan of the show for a long time, and she didn't know Josh and Anna had moved here, so she was shocked and confused when she saw them at our church Sunday morning. She said she was looking for cameras. And then when she began talking to them, she felt strange because she was asking them their names when she already knew them--and already knew from the show all the introductory information you normally ask someone you've just met. She said she also noticed lots of things in their house that she'd seen on the show, and it was all very odd for her.
I knew that living in Washington we would probably encounter some celebrities--celebrities in the political world. And we have spotted some here and there; Harvey's even met a few. But little did I know that living in DC would put us in the path of a family of reality-show stars, not on the Hill but at our little church, not just to meet them but to sit in their living room, to share a meal with them. What a world.
Comments
Post a Comment