OKOBOJI, Iowa | In 1949, First Lutheran Church of West Okoboji started a drive-in worship service at the old Lakeland Drive-In Theater north of Milford on Iowa Highway 71.
The following summer, a honeymooning couple stopped by to worship. It was the Sunday after June 15, 1950, the wedding date. The service made an impression on the new groom.
“I was recently lecturing to a group of Lutheran Pastors and mentioned that I began our church in a Drive-In Theatre,” he wrote in a letter 19 years later. “I mentioned that part of my inspiration went back to my days when I was honeymooning with my wife in Spirit Lake, Iowa…We attended the service in the Drive-In Theatre outside of Spirit Lake. It was a rainy Sunday. There were only about 12 cars there. But the Pastor preached a sermon on ‘God’s Plan for Your Life.’”
God’s plan, as it were, sent the groom to California, where he was challenged to start a church.
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“When I came to California to begin a new church and had no church and no money, I remembered the effectiveness of that sermon,” he continued. “As a result, I felt if I could remember a sermon years later, that it must have been enormously helpful. So I began in a drive-in theatre.”
The letter writer? The Rev. Robert Schuller, who ended up transforming his own drive-in theater worship service into the Crystal Cathedral, one of the world’s most recognizable weekly worship gatherings.
Schuller wrote the letter to the Rev. Gordon Smedsrud, who founded the drive-in worship at Milford. It’s a service that continues to this day, now headed by the Rev. Bob Vaage. The Summer Outdoor Drive-In Service takes place each Sunday morning from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The service, which Vaage considers the church’s “signature ministry,” takes place on church property, near a church constructed just six years ago.
“We average about 120 to 200 cars,” he says. “If you figure two people per car, that’s 300 to 400 worshippers.”
Two large speakers mounted on poles carry the message, as does a short-range FM signal. A game at the start of service asks worshippers to honk their horns for each county listed. There are many who come from Sioux County for this Sunday service at First Lutheran Church.
“We used to have a keyboard player and a singer, but we have a full band now,” says Vaage. “Weather is the biggest challenge. If it rains there is an overhang so we don’t get wet. Lightning will shut it down. You never know what you’re going to get, but that’s part of the charm.”
It’s also the charm back in Arnolds Park where the Rev. Sarah Rohret presides over the Boat-In Worship for Calvary United Methodist Church. The service takes place at Clare Wilson Park, on the bridge that separates West Lake Okoboji and East Lake Okoboji.
This service dates back to Easter 1993 when a sunrise service on the bridge proved popular for the Rev. Scott Holmes, who is now retired.
“Everyone enjoyed it and thought they’d do it once per month, but that summer it was flooded out after one month,” Rohret says. “They began doing it once per month in 1994 and then went weekly in 1995.”
The lowest attendance a year ago was 80 or so. The Boat-In event drew 138 in its first offering this spring.
“There are people who sit in their cars, others in lawn chairs or blankets or public benches,” she says. “There are boats that pull in as well. Some boats drop anchor while others pull into the public dock and tie off.”
Rohret, now in her seventh year at Calvary United Methodist Church, has never had a Boat-In Worship Service completely washed away by rain.
“We’ve ended it a little quicker than usual because of rain coming, but we’ve never been completely rained out,” she says.
That’s not to say the pastor hasn’t been distracted. On a Sunday in May, for example, a muskrat swam in the morning’s calm waters to the delight of those who gathered to pray.
“Things like that are unexpected, part of the fun of worship there,” she says.
Rohret begins each Boat-In Service by saying, “Welcome to God’s great cathedral!”
“I really enjoy that it’s such a different service and is so open to everyone, which I think is the real intent of Christianity, and the real intent of my faith,” she says. “People can walk by or bike by (or boat by) and say, ‘Whoa, what is this?’”
Schuller may have had the same reaction when the Drive-In Worship at First Lutheran caught his eye 60-some years ago.
“It was dedicated as an outreach to our tourist population,” Vaage says. “Back in the late 1940s, folks felt that if you didn’t don a suit and dress you weren’t acceptable in church.”
The Iowa Great Lakes broke that mold.
