My pastor is in Israel this week.
I'm giving the sermon. I haven't written it yet, but I'm giving it.
I also think that I'm presiding during the first part of our service; my AM, who's actually a real-life commissioned lay minister, will have to lead the Eucharistic portion of the service. Unless she doesn't show, in which case I'll have to figure out an impromptu Service of the Word finale. But I don't know for sure until I call her. ("Planning? We don' need no stinkin' planning!")
I don't know if anyone knows how to turn on our sound system, and my little clip-on wireless mike. I don't. (See above.)
Oh...and we're having guest musicians.
And 20 Daisy Scouts, in uniform, who I'm told are going to "help" usher.
And a church raffle.
And our resident Person With Serious Issues, who likes to interrupt the service mid-liturgy with "Can I say something?" and then proceeds to give a rambling, impassioned speech on patriotism and/or piety. The likelihood of his doing this, by the way, seems to be in direct proportion to the "specialness" of the Sunday and the number of people who show up.
(Before leaving, my pastor e-mailed me: "I'd love to be a mouse in the corner on Sunday!" Yeah, I'll bet.)
Breathe...breathe...breathe...
Git-R-Done. Just Git-R-Done, LC.
8 comments:
Hang in there, LC! Remember, it's not about us, it's about worship.
Or something like that.
PS Planning is good.
((LC))
Yooooooou can doooooo eeeeet.
I was about to say something similar, or maybe something not even diplomatic, such as "get over yourself" until I got to the part about the resident Person With Serious Issues. Oh my. Does having issues mean mental illness? We've had our share of opinionated people, but never, never has anyone interupted the worship, except a baby crying, or maybe once in 25 years, someone fainting. And there was the time one of the kids in the Christmas program threw up. I digress.
Does this guy talk coherently? Could he be redirected by being invited to lead an Adult Forum?
We've had lay liturgists, lay readers, lay speakers, lay pray-ers, lay communion celebrants (with the bishop's blessing) for years and years, like maybe 25 years. It is a rare Sunday when it is a pastor do it him/herself Sunday. This is a blessing. I think it leads to being less judgemental, more accepting. Sure the pastor usually does it more smoothly, but this isn't about smoothness, it is about opening ourselves in worship and opening ourselves to being fed.
Hang in there, LC - I'm sure it will be fine! And God will ove it! Especially the Daisy Scouts! ?Daisy? I know what Scouts are - but Daisies??
I suppose you couldn't give the Person WSI a very, very large and sticky toffee at the beginning of the service, could you?? ;-)
Just as a clarification, PWSI is a veteran who I suspect had some very bad things happen to him in the war. In the past, he's said things like, "I appreciate this church because people here don't tell me to shut up" (guilt twinge!) -- so I think on some level he understands that his behavior is out of the norm.
It's funny...after writing my post, and sleeping on it, I woke up with a plan: There are a couple of places in the service that are maybe better than others for penciling in prophetic utterance;-) -- maybe right between the Prayer of the Day and the Lessons, or right after the sermon, or just before the benediction -- so if he wants to speak I'm going to ask him if he can wait until one of those places. My pastor did this before and he seemed okay with it.
As you're all well aware, since this is my second week of whining and whingeing, I have serious issues with control. LOL And it's funny, because it's very compartmentalized; much of my life (like my personal/financial records, housekeeping, etc.) is in total chaos. I was thinking about it this morning on the way to work, and for me it's a case of wanting to control things that really are uncontrollable, while blowing off things that I really should pay more attention to...I'm living the opposite of the Serenity Prayer.;-)
Just as a clarification, PWSI is a veteran who I suspect had some very bad things happen to him in the war. In the past, he's said things like, "I appreciate this church because people here don't tell me to shut up" (guilt twinge!) -- so I think on some level he understands that his behavior is out of the norm.
It's funny...after writing my post, and sleeping on it, I woke up with a plan: There are a couple of places in the service that are maybe better than others for penciling in prophetic utterance;-) -- maybe right between the Prayer of the Day and the Lessons, or right after the sermon, or just before the benediction -- so if he wants to speak I'm going to ask him if he can wait until one of those places. My pastor did this before and he seemed okay with it.
As you're all well aware, since this is my second week of whining and whingeing, I have serious issues with control. LOL And it's funny, because it's very compartmentalized; much of my life (like my personal/financial records, housekeeping, etc.) is in total chaos. I was thinking about it this morning on the way to work, and for me it's a case of wanting to control things that really are uncontrollable, while blowing off things that I really should pay more attention to...I'm living the opposite of the Serenity Prayer.;-)
(((((((((LC)))))))))
Well, it's over...it went okay...pretty good, actually...but I did have to bust up a fight between Brownies in the front pew. Really.
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