Evening with the Episcopalians

Saturday evening saw our second screening in a church, St. Thomas The Apostle in Overland Park. It was a special evening for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, it is the church of Judy Dutra, whose son Burt Humburg is the main character of "Out Here In Kansas." (Judy herself makes an appearance in the movie.)
It is led by the Rev. Gar Demo, a man with whom I share some amazing connections, although we're both pretty sure we hadn't met until Saturday. Gar and I are the same age, we grew up about 10 minutes from each other, we both went to Wichita State and our mutual friends range from opera singers to sports talk show hosts.
And it was great because the crowd was such a terrific mixture of complete strangers, people I'd met the night before and dear friends I hadn't seen in years, including my former newspaper colleagues in Missouri.
I grew up First Baptist, but for a long time I've considered myself an honorary Episcopalian. I'm told a fair amount of the crowd had reservations about watching our documentary, but they came anyway. If I can find more people who will give it a chance for 30 minutes, "Out Here In Kansas" could be well on its way to big things.