Pastoral Ponderings October 2025

I was reading a heartwarming story about a woman’s first experience with a church that was hosting a pet blessing service. The idea of attending a worship service was foreign to her, but she did practice spiritual meditation and other forms of acknowledging God, as well as living the best part of herself.

I imagine that every year, during the pet blessing at Encanto Community Church, someone is sitting in the pews for the first time, praying that the service and the community will touch them. I believe her story offers an insightful view of what we, as a church, provide every year with our pet blessing service. We are allowing people to meet us outside of the formal aspects of church, meeting them where they are comfortable, with their four-legged family member(s).

I am sharing a section of her story, and I hope you will reflect on it and envision how we provide acceptance and comfort to people who visit each year.

Blessing of the Animals
by Brenda Miller•November 2007

And now we’re back in church, Abbe and I. You can find us in the third pew from the rear, Abbe standing with her front paws on the back of the bench in front of us to get the best view possible: Dogs in church! Dogs in church! The minister begins making his way up the center aisle, hitching up his robes and kneeling as he arrives at each parishioner with a pet. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can tell by the way he leans close to each animal that this is a private moment, not meant to be shared.

When I decided to come here today, I didn’t really understand how the blessing itself would be administered: this one-to-one, head-to-head communion. I’d envisioned more of a parade of animals, with each of us leading our pet toward the altar, the blessings dispensed like rain, falling on everyone at once. But this will do.

As the minister draws near, I fumble with one hand in my purse for the picture of Madrona (her cat) while trying to get Abbe to lie still on my lap; she stretches out full length, getting as close to the floor as possible, where the dogs and children mingle. … And then, looming over us, is the minister, a tall man with a whiskered face, his red and white robes fluttering in the breeze created whenever the children run past him. He kneels and asks, “Who do we have here?” The din in the church seems to recede, and I tell him this is Abbe, and I also hold out Madrona’s picture and tell him her name. “Good,” he says, “we’ll keep Madrona in our thoughts as we pray.”

And then he lays his right hand on Abbe’s head, which has gone still, and she looks up at the minister with the same calm gaze she gave to the young boy: tongue at rest in her mouth, eyes half closed, as if in pleasure. He says to her, in a voice low and kind, “May you live a long life of love and peace,” and some other words I can’t quite catch, because my eyes have begun to fill — I didn’t expect this — and I try to concentrate, but it’s difficult, because in this moment I know how much I really do love this dog, and this love startles me. It’s as if the minister has reached in and laid his meaty palm right on the muscle of my own heart: every animal part of me that longs to feel blessed has risen to the surface, like koi in an algae-filled pond…and may we pray in love, amen, and I croak out an amen, and a thank you, and then he’s gone, and a pack of children and worshipers rush into the eddy he leaves behind. A woman asks cheerfully, “What kind of dog is this?” while fondling Abbe’s ears, oblivious to the tears I’m wiping away with the flat of my hand.

I mumble an answer, feeling a little foolish that I’m so shaken — but what can I say, there are dogs in church! — and I gather up Abbe and her leash and her treats, and we make our way toward the back of the sanctuary. Everyone has circled up for the closing hymn. My dog and I take a place at the end of the line, the circle here petering out into a ragged spiral. I hold a stranger’s hand with my right hand, Abbe with the other. Madrona is folded up in my purse. I look around the church to see — lined up along the walls, under the windows — a hundred familiar faces gazing into the center, their voices giving blessing to all that is animal, the animals blessing us in reply. I hoist a panting Abbe onto my hip, and we sway in perfect time to a song I have no idea how to sing.

We are meeting people where they need us most.

Blessings, Rev. Gloria