Reflections on a Father’s Day park service from Pastor Mike Boyle of Memorial Baptist Church, Parkston, South Dakota.
The clouds rolled in before the first hymn.
On Father’s Day morning, our congregation gathered not in our warm, familiar sanctuary but outdoors in the park, under a shelter, with folding chairs and the promise of a cookout waiting on the other side of the service. It rained. And we stayed anyway.
I got a call before the service wondering if we might have to cancel. I responded, “I think we are set up and ready to go.” There was concern about people not wanting to sit in the rain. I said, “We’re set up under the shelter.”
Shortly after, everyone was there. And the mood was gratitude.
We are a church in South Dakota. This is farm country. When the land is dry, the whole state feels it. There’s a quiet worry that settles over a community that knows exactly where its food comes from. Rain here is not an inconvenience. Rain is life.
Some of our congregation are farmers themselves. Others care. That is what it means to be the body of Christ. When one member struggles, the body struggles. When one member is blessed, the body celebrates.
Our farmers need the rain. Our rivers need the rain. Water is life.
The rain was not falling on our shoulders. We were under the shelter.
The mood shifted from endurance to thanksgiving.
The service carried the full warmth of a community celebration. Taylor Hughes anchored the worship on drums while Gail Goehring played piano. There is something about music carrying across open air that you just cannot replicate indoors, part church, part creation. Both at the same time.
Then I preached.
The title was a question I believe most fathers quietly carry but rarely speak aloud: Am I enough?
My answer was direct. No. And that is not a failure. That is humanity.
I walked through the fears fathers carry: the absent father, the mistakes already made, the feeling of never being spiritual enough. I met each one with Scripture. Bezalel, the craftsman God equipped by name for the tabernacle long before the task was announced, became an unexpected portrait of fatherhood. Formed by ordinary life, filled by the Spirit, prepared without knowing it.
I told the fathers gathered under that shelter: “Your whole life, God has prepared you.”
I closed with three plain assignments, not a program, not a checklist, but a calling.
Train your children. Not information transfer, but formation. Let the Word of God be on your lips in the house, on the road, morning and night.
Set an example of following Christ. “Follow me as I follow Christ.” Not perfection. Direction.
Love their mother. I lingered here. The greatest thing a father can do for his children is love their mother well. Your children are learning who God is by watching how you love their mother.
The closing answer to the morning’s question was both honest and freeing:
“No, and you were never meant to be. Train them. Show them. Love their mother so well they see the love of God. That’s the job. By His grace, you are enough for that.”
After the sermon, the Heitzman family served food for the cookout, feeding our congregation with the kind of hospitality that has long defined who we are at Memorial Baptist Church. The rain did not stop the fellowship any more than it had stopped the worship.
This was the first year it had rained during our park service. The first year we had to make a choice about what kind of people we were going to be when conditions were less than ideal. We answered without much discussion.
The Bible teaches us to worship in every circumstance. Not just when everything is the way we like it. Sometimes growth in our spiritual walk needs a little adversity to show us that God’s purpose is not our happiness. It is our holiness. Keeping Jesus at the center of our life is not about convenience. It is about priority.
We have a beautiful building at Memorial Baptist Church. Warm. Ready every week. God has been good to us. And I have spent my whole life going to church. This is the first church I can remember that holds a dedicated service in the park. It is wonderful.
But the question someone asked me is worth answering plainly.
Why do we worship in the rain?
Because it was raining. And it was time to worship.
If you are near Parkston, South Dakota, you are welcome to worship with us — rain or shine. To learn more about our church, visit parkstonbaptist.com.