Sunday, September 17, 2006

One of the hardest weeks on my personal ministerial record.

Usual tasks, plus two very large funerals. Some other epically painful things occurring in peoples' lives.
Six hours of on-campus class time, plus approximately 225 minutes of commute time. Most weeks will have half that.

I got most of my service for our new Second Sunday liturgy written last night before going to M's surprise birthday party, and returned home at 11:00 pm to finish it up. The computer crashed. I spent an hour trying to get it to boot up, but decided to let the computer rest before I threw it out the window in a rage.
I slept restlessly through a night full of nightmares, then got up at 6 am to salvage what I could of the service.
Thank the gods, the computer booted.

I wrote the rest of the service, made breakfast, and went to church.

If I may brag just mildly, do you know many congregations who wouldn't react with some negativity to the minister changing around the liturgy a lot? We changed it A LOT, for our new Second Sunday thing that focuses on faith development through service. Whole new order of service. Music Director was a champ. Lay preacher, a champ. Everyone was a champ. That's my word of the day: champ.

I didn't get one complaint, but I probably got about 12 smiling thumbs up. Comments ranged from a simple, "Hey, I liked it!" to "That was interesting, I liked it, I think it will find its rhythm really soon" to "I really liked it, I'm going to digest it more and see if I have any specific feedback."

Excuse me, but I call that incredibly cool.

The trick to ministry, I am convinced, is to have the kind of congegation who, when you have no energy of your own, are great people to vampire off of. I actually and truly don't think I could have gotten through the service if they hadn't been who they are.

And now, sleep. Without nightmares, I hope.


[update 3 hours later: I racked out like a champ and feel slightly more alive, but only slightly. I had more nightmares. In this one, I was forced to walk the plank and drop into the water from a big ship as some kind of sacrificial ritual. I was wearing period clothes of a 19th century naval officer or something. It felt like the dream was a more intense piratical follow-up to the dream of the other day wherein I adopted a dog named Jean Lafitte. This will definitely bear some reflection. What would Dr. Jung say?-- PB]

3 Comments:

Blogger ogre said...

dunno about Jung, but it sounds like you're ramping up for a serious celebration of International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

17:50  
Blogger fausto said...

Arrh, me beauty, ye be needin' a few hours portside, arrh.

21:24  
Blogger Berrysmom said...

Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19. That would be this Tuesday.

Avast, mateys!

22:35  

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