For years we had driven by the plain brown building that might have been a pizza parlor originally. Its gravel parking lot fronts the busy bend of State Highway 75 by the Hailey Friedman Memorial airport that leads to Sun Valley, Idaho, ten miles north.

Surrounding the building are places to buy gasoline, burgers and tacos, automobiles, and hardware. One can also have furniture reupholstered, enjoy the rodeo or skateboard park, or check into a motel room or nursing home. This is the last messy conglomeration of Main Street businesses in a former mining town before closing in on the world-renowned mountain resort communities of Sun Valley and Ketchum. Ernest Hemingway, Averell Harriman, Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper first put the area on the map. Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, and Arnold the Terminator keep it there.

After discovering the magnificence of the area during camping trips in the 1980s, we purchased a second home in Sun Valley so we could hike the breathtaking mountains, cast lines into the abundant clear streams, and ski the vast slopes and cross-country trails. Whenever possible, we would flee the work stress and crowds of California to become faithful members of the Church of Outdoor Recreation and Private Meditation.

But one Sabbath morning we drove our old cream-colored Land Rover to the brown building with three angels mounted high on one wall. We joined a handful of other dusty four-wheel-drive vehicles and small sedans huddled next to the unmarked entrance. Dogs waited for their masters in numerous vehicles with the windows open. Inside, we found a small gathering of folks in casual dress and in earnest quest for a transforming relationship with God. We had parked at a new spiritual trailhead.

We don’t just attend the little brown church. We have been graciously embraced and adopted by its community of pilgrims.

Here we know who is at church and who isn’t. We know who needs encouragement and who is beside themselves with excitement. Members spend the first part of each Sabbath morning sharing each heart’s dearest worries and joys, sharing stories of victories, defeats, and challenges from the week. The prayers are not outstanding examples of vocabulary, use of metaphors, or perfectly chosen quotations. They are simply an honest rendering of one’s state of mind, one’s wish to know and worship the Creator and Savior and King.

And then during the lesson study, which is led on a rotating basis by Casey, Gary, Joan, or the pastor’s wife, there is much rustling of the pages and comparison of texts as everyone digs into numerous versions of the Bible and lesson study guides for an earnest and energetic search for new understanding or amazement about God. There is often reference to something that was said or read at the Wednesday night prayer meeting study in the pastor’s apartment upstairs.

By the time we get to the sermon, there isn’t much time left. So the pastor keeps it brief, usually fifteen to twenty minutes. But it is delivered with passion and humility and commitment to keeping our eyes on Jesus. He calls out a member’s name here and there, uses examples from our various interests and experiences, and refers to our self-declared foibles, situations, or questions to illustrate a point.

Our pastor, who first served in the mission field as a physical therapist, is shared with another larger church a few hours away, so he is present only every other Sabbath. He stands in the pews among us because it would seem silly to preach to the two to four pews of us from the raised platform. On opposite weeks, we watch a recording of a sermon recorded from a Three Angels Network broadcast by Gary, a framing carpenter who makes the tastiest vegetarian roast for our potlucks. Sometimes we have a guest speaker who has been sent out on the circuit from the conference office. Sometimes students from one of the academies will put on a choral program, and we feed them lunch before they go on to their next concert. There are more of them than us.

When Joan, who has a housecleaning business, isn’t around to play the piano for our congregational singing, we have prerecorded accompaniments technically choreographed by John, a finish carpenter in our group. Or we just sing a cappella. But we always sing, even if there are just four or five of us. "Redeemed," "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and "For the Beauty of the Earth" are favorites. I am touched by how sincerely and robustly Gary and John sing and support the church in so many practical ways. Christ would have enjoyed their companionship as fellow carpenters.

Many of the worshipers come alone. Vivacious Deborah, a realtor, takes care of the children’s Sabbath School when we have children in attendance. She’s married to an ex-Adventist but comes alone and bakes the cakes we enjoy at potluck. Robert, who owns the nearby upholstery shop, is a Lutheran who regularly makes great comments on the lesson study and invites us all to view the community parades from in front of his shop. Margaret, a single parent who does surgery scheduling at the hospital, brings her three children, who are the core of our children’s division. Robert, a twenty-something radiological tech at the hospital and a hard core competitive athlete, is single and becoming an excellent Sabbath School lesson teacher for us. I see Virginia at the grocery store where she works. She’s very shy but she did tell me she had planted some summer vegetables in her little trailer park garden.

We send someone over to the nursing home across the street to bring over ninety-nine-year-old George in the wheelchair. We use a special microphone so he can hear the sermon, lesson, or comments and prayers on his headset. Carla, the young blond optometrist, always sits on the "other side" of the sanctuary with Deborah. Maybe it’s because her cell phone often goes off because she is always on call for patient emergencies and she wants to cause the least disturbance when she gets up to take the call.

Katy with the gorgeous smile drops in with her little girl once in a while. She and her husband have a business building aesthetic ponds for private homes and developments. Occasionally Joan’s husband comes after services. He’s a chef, ski instructor, and carpenter and will arrive in time for potluck and then join us for our afternoon outing.

It has become customary for our group to have potluck on the first Sabbath of the month, when the pastor and his wife are with us. Then we try to go for a hike or a snowshoe adventure together with our dogs. Sometimes we stay together afterward for a light supper at the church or at someone’s house. We don’t like saying good-by. We are inspired, energized, and grounded by our time together.

A few weeks ago our dog Rockee became very ill, and almost died. I e-mailed the pastor’s wife to say that we wouldn’t be able to make it to church or have the group over to our place after the hike as planned because of our dog’s hospitalization in California. They prayed for Rockee at church. Members e-mailed daily concerns about him and said they were praying continually for him.

Prayers for Rockee. What an astonishing thing!

This probably wouldn’t have happened at the college churches in Takoma Park, Angwin, La Sierra, and Loma Linda we used to attend. There we heard the finest sermons and listened to the spine-tingling music of organs, choirs, orchestras, and hand bells. There we could choose from many creative social events, spiritual retreats, and impressive community outreach activities. In those churches there are piles of degrees and credentials in every pew and rows of expensive vehicles in the parking lot. There nobody brings a dog to church.

When people remark how lucky we must be to enjoy regularly the world-class environment of Sun Valley, I always agree. It is here we engage the mysteries of God, creation, and the universe with this little group of disciples. These people who prayed for our beloved Rockee.

(Names have been changed. Rockee recovered.)

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