By Ned Lenhart • Photos by Travis Dewitz T
his is the story of a pink mohawk. Or more accu- rately, the power of a pink mohawk to inspire a mission congregation in Cameron, Wis., in ways we never could have imagined.
“Mom and Dad, may I have a mohawk? Mitchell Bourget, 9, asked his parents. They told him he couldn’t because he wasn’t old enough.
Unwilling to accept their answer,
Mitchell proceeded to Plan B, enlist- ing the help of fellow Living Water Lutheran Church member Peter Johnson. A strapping man in his mid- 30s with a deep belly laugh and eyes bursting with warmth and wisdom, Johnson was the only other person in Mitchell’s world to sport a mohawk. A pink mohawk, to be exact. Huddled in the corner one Sunday after worship, Mitchell and Johnson began working on how to convince parents who were reluctant to give their son permission for a mohawk. Johnson advised Mitchell that he needed to connect the mohawk to something bigger and more important.
Eventually the conspirators approached the Bourgets with a proposal: If Mitchell could raise $200 for the Barron County Humane Society, would Mom and Dad con-
sent to a mohawk?
The answer was yes, and the following Sunday the fundraising began.
A clipboard congregation Living Water is all about clipboards. Want something done? Attach the request to a clipboard, make a pitch during the announcements and send it among the worshipers. For the next several Sundays, that’s what happened. Mitchell and Johnson stood before the congregation with a clip- board, offering this pitch: “If 100 of you each give $2 to the Humane Society, this young boy will be able to look in the mirror and behold his first mohawk.”
The congregation responded with enthusiasm and two weeks later the clipboard was full and the goal reached.
But this isn’t the end of the story
because that’s about the time the Spirit ramped up its activity and the project became the means of extend- ing God’s reach into the community. It started
Mitchell Bourget gets his hair cut by Donna Ames, a local stylist and one of Ned Lenhart’s players in his story of how a desire for a pink mohawk brought a mis- sion congrega- tion together.
with a question: What would it be like to have the haircut during Sunday worship? This was way too much fun to keep to ourselves, we reasoned.
In no time
at all we had a page-long list of names of families who’d
been lingering on the edges of Liv- ing Water for some time. The phone calling began.
Instead of asking just anyone to cut Mitchell’s hair, we decided to ask Donna Ames, a gentle woman with a heart for animals who was not part of our faith community. Her weekends were full, but she cleared space on her schedule just for us. Realizing this was fast becoming an opportunity to lift the mission of Living Water to a new and bigger audience, we contacted the media. The day of the haircut, the excite-
ment in the air was palpable. The tarp was laid, the razor was ready … and through the door they came: dozens of people eager to witness the fulfillment of a dream, born of the friendship between a now- famous boy and his big buddy with an even bigger imagination. Many worshiped with us that day, but two families deserve mention. The first are Sadie and Mike
Davis. They had been through the church doors only once before—15 months earlier when they sat in my office for premarital counseling. It was during our conversation about spirituality that Mike had declared: “I’m not a church guy. I don’t do church and I will never step foot in a church for worship.” And there he was, sitting in the back row holding the hand of his now-pregnant wife. Seated next to them were the three developmen- tally challenged gentlemen who live under their care in their new home. “Mike,” I said to him after the service, “look where you are—in church.” He replied: “Hey,
I like this place. I like laughing. I’m coming back. No, we’re coming back!”
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Lenhart is mission developer of Living Water Lutheran Church, Cameron, Wis., which he says is successfully engaging the approxi- mately 40 percent of the area population who are unchurched.
February 2013 31
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