Um... so due to the unfortunate confluence of laryngitis, job transition and major flight delays, there is no one but me to be in charge of this afternoon's worship service at Famous Historical Church at which Important People did Memorable Things. Arrgh. The buck is stopping here with alarming frequency lately.
One of the reasons I knew I wasn't called to pastoral ministry was that I am not a huge fan of worship leadership. Preaching - no problem. (With manuscript.) But once you start asking me to do things like remain articulate while making spontaneous announcements, know how to tie that funky belt-thingie, sing alone in front of a microphone, and remember in which order many, many important liturgical details come, then you have... shall we say... stepped outside the boundaries of the well-defined "What Jess is good at" zone.
And yet here I stand, so to speak. In order to avoid offending the "good order" of the church, which states in no uncertain terms that Diaconal Ministers don't consecrate the elements, I have asked the group leader (an ordained pastor) to do that li'l part. The rest is all me, baby!
All righty then. Bring it on.
Pastor friends, how do you make something a worshipful experience for others when the whole time you are rehearsing the psalm tone in your head, looking frantically to the next page in the worship leader's book and singing in four-part chorus in your mind "What comes next where do I have to go what am I supposed to be doing right now?"? This doesn't feel like ministry.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Can you say "aaauuugghh!"?
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4 comments:
wow, are you leading worship at that church which has the nail holes in the door from Martin's 95 thesis (actually, there might be an interesting link between those nails and another set of nails, or has that already been done in Lutheran circles)
Yes and no. Yep, that's the church all right... but actually, it appears that the nail and the hammer are really but the stuff of legends, and he probably posted the things using something innocuous like... I dunno.. scotch tape ;-) or just the plain old pony express. But the image of physically driving a nail is a fun one.
The current facade of that door is a bronze one, with all 95 theses (in Latin, of course) embossed in very large print covering the whole double door. More a memorial than a recreation, methinks.
Do you remember "comforting non-anxious presence" from CPE? You *try* to be that kind of leader on the outside when inside 8 million things are swirling and you don't really get to worship. And you have to let go of some of the perfectionism...(yeah, you say, listen to yourself Jodi!) You have to trust that God can (and does) work through the worship, that it's liturgy (work of the PEOPLE, not the LEADER), and let the Spirit move however it needs to even if everything isn't exactly how it's printed.
Thank you. These are all Very Good Things to Hear. In fact I might just print them out and make them my Worship Mantra. :-)
Especially the liturgy piece. Mmm... theology through etymology. Gotta love it.
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