Sunday Church at Solid Rock

Sunday in Asheville - a gloriously beautiful day! I started the day in church and finished the day in the Noodle Bowl, one of the many restaurants that line Broadway in downtown Asheville. This one was a Thai restaurant, moderately priced and VERY good food. By the way, downtown Asheville is like a New York City neighborhood - lots of people on the sidewalks, a restaurant every 2 or 3 buildings, small shops. Even on a Sunday night, people were still out at 9:30 pm and restaurants were still open and busy.

The last door that we knocked on Saturday was a couple (Calvin and Anita, in the picture to the left) who were Obama supporters. It was the end of the day, so we spent more time than usual talking with them. They invited us to attend their church on Sunday morning and said that their pastor was a big Obama supporter. Before we left, Anita went into the house and came back out with a portable phone and handed it to Lisa - my campaign partner for the afternoon. The pastor of the church was on the phone and wanted to invite us not only to attend but to speak during the church service on Sunday morning!

We accepted his invitation, and headed off to Solid Rock Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday morning. The church itself has quite a story. Here's a link to an article in the local newspaper that tells the story better than I can: http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880328113 By the way, Calvin and his 5-year old son are pictured in the article's sidebar photo.

Their service begins with music and carries throughout the entire 2-hour service. The pastor, Rev. Otis Ware, (in the picture to the right with Lisa, her daughter Dominique who is 11, and me) who loves to sing, even works music into his sermon. One of the most touching moments was when the entire congregation - about 75 people - stood up, turned to face us and the other visitors, and sang a welcome song to us as we remained in our seats. By the way, this is the most "hugging" church I have ever been in. We were hugged as we came up the sidewalk, hugged again when we walked through the doors, hugged several times during the service and hugged over and over again as we said goodbye.

Lisa and I both spoke about why we support Barack Obama and encouraged those who had not voted to vote on Tuesday. I think our words were well received - at least we got a lot of "Amens"!

The campaign goes on. I'm off this morning for another day of door knocking and tomorrow is election day. I'm meeting some great people and I'll tell you more about my campaign buddies in a later post. They are literally from all over this side of the country and totally committed to getting Barack Obama elected. This is an amazing campaign!