Sarah Taylor, 50 — who watched from her front yard as two food trucks parked outside the church and people in tie-dye gathered — shook her head and drank her coffee. “They’re using religion as a way to legalize their habit,” she said. “If it stands, it’s going to be in your backyard, in your backyard, in all the backyards.”

By Wednesday, though, law enforcement authorities here had made it abundantly clear that they viewed the laws on marijuana as unchanged. Lt. Richard Riddle of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police declined to say exactly how many officers were at the church, but there were officers outside, posted on nearby corners, behind the church, and riding in pairs on bicycles. And officials announced late last week that anyone smoking marijuana at the First Church of Cannabis’s first service could expect criminal charges. Even observers might be charged, the officials warned, with “visiting a common nuisance.”

So, in the portion of the service when Mr. Levin had planned to pull marijuana from a wooden box and begin smoking it, he did not. Instead, he lit a thick cigar. Some people lit ordinary cigarettes. The legal fight over the religious law needed to be fought in civil court, he said, not in criminal court. The church’s legal advisers, he said, were working on the next steps for getting the legal test they want. “There was a little bit of intimidation about our religious beliefs,” Mr. Levin told the crowded church.

What was left to do, then?

The rest of the service was part dance party, part comedy routine and part heartfelt, personal testimony from those in attendance about the medical use of marijuana. Mr. Levin ordered those assembled to rise and say, “I love you,” five times while looking in different directions. He had the crowd repeat a “Deity Dozen” phrases to live by, including “Do not be a troll on the Internet” and “Grow food.” The police said no arrests were made, and Police Chief Rick Hite described the events as civil and peaceful.

“Enjoy the fellowship,” Mr. Levin called out as he took a drag on his cigar, then started to dance.