The corn is standing tall in all four directions surrounding Trinity Lutheran, leaving little question that the church midway between Le Sueur and Gaylord is always closely yoked to the land and the farmers who cultivate it.

On Sunday, the connection was as clear as the color coordination between the corn — bright green after a summer of timely rains but starting its transition to autumn gold — and the John Deere equipment dominating the front of the church.

“A country church should bless the harvest and the people who labor. And bless their lives,” said Pastor Bill Nelsen.

Bless the tractors, too, and the grain wagons and the combines. That’s what Nelsen, farmer David Kahle and others in the rural congregation decided they’d do Sunday.

So Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were joined by Ford, Farmall, Ferguson and White. The congregation’s Sunday-best was replaced by John Deere shirts, seed caps and jeans. Instead of handing out communion, Nelsen distributed blessings to knobby tractor tires and diesel engines.

The service was conducted outside with about 100 folks on folding chairs, the church in front of them and the farm equipment to their backs. There was a serious spiritual message of thanksgiving for a successful growing season, but also of the importance of planting the seeds of Christ’s love in oneself and in others.

Still, Nelsen didn’t deny that part of Sunday’s service — with families arriving in a stream of tractors and combines — was simply about having some fun.

“Oh, it is. Absolutely,” Nelsen said. “We wanted to say, ‘This is the special way we celebrate.’”

Anyone looking for indication that there was playful appreciation for the service from above might have found it during the singing of “We Plow the Fields and Scatter.” As the congregation — about two-thirds of them farm families — sang, a sprinkle began to fall just as they hit the lyrics about the “soft refreshing rain.”

And then it stopped, leaving the rest of the service mostly dry — the sort of respite from wet weather farmers will be looking for in two or three weeks when the harvest begins in earnest. Kahle, before running to get more chairs from the church for the larger-than-expected crowd, said he was thankful for any special blessing for his fellow farmers as they go into a hectic and potentially perilous period of hard work.

“Maybe we’ll have a healthier, happier harvest and all the farmers will stay well,” Kahle said.

It was the first time Trinity has tried a “Tractor Roll-In Sunday.” It appears to be the first one the area has seen. But it probably won’t be the last, and there may be other rural churches looking to join Trinity on a future September Sunday.

“This is great,” said Lynette Renneke-Wiest of rural Le Sueur. “We’re hoping our church can combine with this sometime.”

Renneke-Wiest attends Scandian Grove Lutheran Church, but she brought her brass quartet to help make Trinity’s service special. With her and her husband Don Wiest on trumpet, son Jordan on tuba and Luke Norrel on trombone, they played several hymns and seemed to particularly warm up the crowd with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Before the tractors rolled back to their machine sheds, there were more prayers.