Faith+Values: Sermon on a stick

When he arrived at the State Fair on Sunday morning, going to church was not high on Warren Van Ranst's to-do list. But his wife, Sandy Hermundson, had heard about a church service that included a reading from one of her favorite poets, Pablo Neruda. And then he learned where the service was being held.

"I figure that if you can go to church at a place called the Leinie Lodge, you can't lose," said the teacher from New Richmond, Wis., with a laugh.

The Leinie Lodge, sponsored by Leinenkugel's beer and still known informally by its pre-corporate-sponsorship designation as the Bandshell, is one of three locations used for church services on the two Sunday mornings of each year's State Fair. To get into the spirit of the surroundings, the sponsoring Minnesota Council of Churches glued the bulletins onto -- what else? -- a stick.

"We're trying to make it fun, because it's the fair," said Gail Anderson, who organized the nondenominational service. "But we're also trying to be worshipful, because it's the church."

The 75 fairgoers who attended -- many relaxing in "Leinie Loungers" to the side of the stage -- appeared to appreciate the opportunity to attend a service.

"It's an important part of Sunday," Hermundson said.

Five blocks away on Machinery Hill, Fr. Bob Nygaard was celebrating Roman Catholic mass with an overflow crowd of at least 400 at the Family Fair Stage. It's a familiar gig for Nygaard, who has conducted services at the fair for 15 years.

"Technically, the fairgrounds are part of our parish," he said, speaking of the Church of Corpus Christi in Roseville. "We've been doing this since the 1940s." It started as a mass for the people who work at the fair, "and then it just grew," he said.

The tricky part is keeping his focus on business, he said. Directly in his line of sight as he stands on stage is a booth where people can have their hair temporarily dyed in bright neon colors. Every now and then he finds himself distracted by someone walking past with shockingly orange hair.

"But it's a lot of fun," he said after the mass. "And now I get to go eat a Pronto Pup."

On the other end of the fairgrounds, the Crossroads Chapel filled its 100-seat hall for three Sunday morning services -- although last weekend, it almost was reduced to two. There was no shortage of worshippers; it was Pastor Paul Stewart who was missing.

A Minnesota native who recently relocated from San Diego to take a position at Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church, he figured that he'd remember the fair from his many visits as a teenager. It turned out that either the fair had changed or his recall had grown fuzzy.

"I got lost on the fairgrounds," he confessed after one of the services at the chapel, just east of the Food Building. "I didn't get here until 5 minutes before the first service."

Arranging for clergy is the trickiest part of the fair services, Anderson has discovered in the two years that she has planned the Bandshell services.

"It's pretty hard to find a preacher who's free on Sunday morning," she said. This year, she was able to recruit the Rev. Mark Yackel-Juleen, who is part of a ministerial team that covers several small congregations near Windom, Minn.

"I was able to get my teammates to cover for me," he said.

His biggest challenge was writing the sermon.

"I knew that very likely this was going to be a diverse gathering, and I wanted to find the words that would be appropriate and meaningful to a wide variety of people," he said. The hubbub of activity surrounding the service didn't distract him: "I recently conducted a service on a beach at Cabo San Lucas [Mexico]. If I can preach there, I can preach anywhere."

In addition to the long-running mass, the Crossroads Chapel, sponsored by a consortium of Evangelical churches, has been part of the fair for 50 years. The Bandshell services started in the mid-1990s. New this year is a meditation tent tucked into a quiet space -- quiet being a relative term at the fair -- between the 4-H and Education buildings. A modest, white canvas structure, it was added in response to requests from visitors, a fair spokesperson said.

For the most part, people not attending the services were respectful of those who were. Fairgoers who stumbled onto one of the outdoor services quit talking and quickly moved away. As the overflow crowd at the mass started crowding around some of the booths that adjoin the stage, the people working at the booths sat and waited quietly.

But that lasted only until the last "amen." Other than the Crossroads Chapel, which has its own building, the services are held in multiple-use facilities that are tightly scheduled. Nygaard barely got his candlesticks packed before stagehands started taking down the table.

"I guess it's time for the next show," he said.

Jeff Strickler • 612-673-7392

Jeff Strickler • jstrickler@startribune.com