Pro Christo et pro Ecclesia Eius

This evening we had a special called presbytery meeting, and I don't know if I was a champion of the faith and a defender of the interests of the Presbytery, or just a nitpicking pain in the rear.

Well, no, I do know where the truth lies in this, and it's only my ingrained cowardice and reluctance to do anything that might cause anyone not to like me that has me making that serio-comic comment.

In light of the upheavals going on in the Presbyterian Church (USA), my presbytery appointed a task force to draft guideline documents on a number of crucial issues. Such as, what we as a presbytery believe, how we will deal with churches that choose to lodge protests against denominational policy by withholding all or a portion of their per capita assessments, how the presbytery will work with churches who are so fed up with current PC(USA) shenanigans that they want to bolt altogether, and other such matters.

Tonight was the second reading. Amendments were solicited by the presbytery office. I submitted six-- two on matters of content, three on matters of clarity, and one (which I withdrew) on a matter of style.

Three passed; the others failed, one by only one vote. I couldn't help but wonder what people thought about me going to the mike so many times. But if I were convinced the body would be helped or harm to it prevented by the proposed change, did my self-consciousness really matter?

The irony of the evening for me was the comments of one task force member who kept speaking against my rewording suggestions by saying the present text was perfectly clear to the members of the task force.

Yes, and when I do a set of drawings and specs, when I've been working on a particular design for months on end, my intention is perfectly clear to me, too. But then the project goes out to bid, and hey, voici, the bidding contractors don't find every last thing perfectly clear. And out comes the good old Addendum form, to be distributed to one and all.

Tonight was a chance for those outside the process to bring fresh eyes and clarity to the project, in effect before it went to final "bid." I and a handful of others did what we could.

As for the language that remains vague, I suppose as long as we have the framers around, they can give us an interpretation. I suppose there's no point in worrying that looseness and uncertainty in these documents could get us into trouble twenty, thirty miles down the road. The rate my denomination is lurching towards self-destruction, a little vagueness on our part won't make a lot of difference. And if the PC(USA) is still around thirty years from now, that'll be such a miracle that anything we did tonight will be outshone into oblivion.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(There's a postscript to tonight's performance: I woke up this morning with a sloppy, drippy sinus cold and took a couple decongestant tablets before I drove off to the meeting. When I got home-- just after my renewed drippiness had induced me to take two more-- I happened to read on the box that they're 24 hour pills! Oops! You mean I was on twice the recommended dose when I was at presbytery? You mean that's the cause of the slight unreality I felt this evening, the sense of distance that took my craven gut out of the picture and kept me moving to the mike to propose and defend my submissions? Looks like it! [Insert Cowper reference here.]

(As for now with four of those one-per-day pills under my belt, I'd say too much Sudafed makes you jumpy, not drowsy. But I won't go get behind the wheel to find out for sure.)

Well, I Suppose It IS Starting Already

Tonight was the first rehearsal for the 2007-2008 season of the Village Singers, in which I sing soprano.

You can always tell when Linda, our director, has been off to another choral conductors' conference in the vacation. Tonight we practiced making human A-frames, to share tone and resonance, and maybe a few nits while we were at it.

We also began to practice this season's Christmas music. As usual, we have a whole calendar of concerts in December, and we have to start now so by then we'll be able to achieve the sound and ensemble that Linda now hears only in her head.

And as much as I gripe about the culture making us focus on Christmas too early, there's a way in which early preparation is inextricably tied to the season.

God, after all, started preparing for Christmas-- that is, for the Incarnation of His Son-- as far back as the Garden of Eden.

All that process of the call of Abraham: of Israel's slavery in Egypt and their deliverance from it: of kings and prophets and exile and restoration: all that was God getting ready and getting His people ready for Christmas.

And Christmas itself is about the Son of God getting ready to die on the cross for our sins. And the cross was preparation for Christ's resurrection, and the resurrection for His ascension into heaven, and His ascension into heaven was preparation for the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth and commissioning of the Church.

Preparation after preparation after preparation! From of old to the present and into the future! All this preparation, getting ready for the great eternal feast that God has planned for His people when He makes all things new. That will be the ultimate holiday. That will be when we finally can sit down forever and rest and enjoy.

In the meantime, we're in choir working on music for Advent and Christmas of 2007. And yeah, we do have to start getting ready now.

It's Starting Already

The first Christmas catalogs for the 2007 season arrived in the mail today.

Here they are:

Once I'd scanned the covers, they went straight in the trash. I haven't the time nor the call now even to think about Christmas gift buying, even if I did have the cash.

Of course, come next December 23rd when I'm standing in the interminable queue at the post office, or when yet again I'm staring at the stack of Christmas cards and envelopes I have neither addressed nor sent, I'll think back to today and go, "You improvident twerp! Why didn't you take the hint and get started early for a change?"

I'll risk it.

As If I Had Nothing Better to Do . . .

I has a cat.

I has also compewtr an indernetz.

An grate REFORMED theologie!

Puts thim loltogthur, we can haz ~~~~~~~~~

REFORMED LOLCATZ!!1

(see belw plz)

Moar ltr mybe. Kthxbai.

Homing Pigeons

Back last April when I got put "on contract basis" from the architecture firm (due to, I was told, lack of work matching my skillset), my soon-to-be-former boss said, "I know! We'll say you're going on part time so you can spend more time doing church ministry work!"

I, being the Be Agreeable First, Think Later type, did not gainsay this. I figured, maybe This Is God's Way of Pushing Me Out to Pursue My Ministry Vocation.

But it's four months later and all I'm doing in that line is pulpit supply preaching, which I'd been doing all along. None of the possibilities that were talked up for me here in my presbytery have panned out, and as for my listing on the wider PC(USA) pastor-congregation computer dating website, I've gotten nary a nibble.

So I'm throwing in my lot with the architects again. At least, I've started sending out resumes, like flocks of cream-colored Classic Laid 25-lb. bond pigeons.

Of course these pigeons have to be tracked very mile of the way. I know it'll take a lot of phone calls and follow-up e-mails even to get my foot in the door.

I'm asking for informational interviews, whether firms are looking for a Project Architect of my qualifications or not. I didn't grow up around here: I don't know the architectural firms at all. At my former company, we were kept at it so steadily you didn't have time to get to know the people in your own office, let alone anybody anywhere else. If I can at least see who's doing what, I'll know whom to concentrate on, whom to pester like my cat knocking things off the dresser to get me up in the morning, because I really want to work there.

Till then, I'll see if any of my "pigeons" makes it home.

Physician, Heal Thyself

I'm printing out my sermon for tomorrow. I've chosen more or less the Revised Common Lectionary passages from Luke and Colossians, the former covering Jesus' parable of the Rich Fool and the latter, where we are to consider ourselves dead with our true lives hidden in heaven with Christ.

I'd intended to focus on the theme of True Riches, but the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last Wednesday made it right to deal also with the motif of death.

A very sound sermon the Holy Spirit has given me, I think: All about the wrongheartedness of confusing making a living with having a life, and of confusing the temporary life of this earth with the eternal life in God. With a descant on how our attitudes on that have to be right all the time, since at any moment our lives might be required of us, just as in the parable of the Rich Fool, just as with those poor victims of the bridge disaster the other day.

The Holy Spirit is also reminding me what a wry sense of humor my God has. Why does He always insist I preach my sermons to myself first? Why does He so cleverly arrange it so, no matter what the texts are, they and my sermons always are applicable to me?

It struck me in the Luke passage that, by human estimation, the man in the crowd who asks Jesus to make his brother divide the inheritance with him isn't greedy at all. He only wants what's his according to the law. He only wants his means of livelihood.

But my sinless Lord Jesus implies that he's greedy! He's greedy because he's focussing all effort and hope in life on material sustenance and how he can get it. He's not concentrating on God and His will for His life; no, he's willing to drag his brother's name publicly through the mud and ignore God in the process. The poor can be greedy just as much as the rich. They can be just as impoverished in their relationship with God.

And here I am, without a fulltime job since early April, drawing unemployment compensation that will run out before I know it. And I'm worried. I know I'm good at what I do, whether it's in pastoral work or in architecture. And I'm willing to get additional credentials where I'm lacking.

But I'm afraid. I'm afraid a suitable pastorate will never open up for me. I'm afraid that potential architectural employers will only see my age and the fact that I'm a novice in AutoCAD (I'm an ace at drawing by hand) and refuse to speak with me any further. I worry about losing my house and my possessions and coming on the charity of family or the State or ending up a bum.

Or worse, maybe, I'll starve to death and die!

I'm afraid, I worry, I focus on making a living or my inability to make a living and turn my eyes totally from the power and provision of God! I let that fear and worry depress me so much I'm unable to concentrate on finding the labor and livelihood that God has out there for me!

I don't say writing this sermon has screwed my head back on straight. But preaching it tomorrow should help the process a little. And may grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit move it forward a lot.

Looking at Liberty

I'm back in my home town of Kansas City, Missouri, for this year's mass choir call for the North American Welsh Choir. Final rehearsals for our Saturday night concert begin tomorrow morning, most choristers having arrived this afternoon. I came a little earlier, to allow me to see people and places I hadn't since I moved east four years ago.

Some of these places didn't actually exist four years ago.

One such is the new Liberty Memorial Museum. Oh, it was in the planning stages in 2003. And the fundraising stages. And the arguing stages, with those who thought it was a desecration of the 1926 design of the building to build a large-scale exhibit space under the deck of the nation's officially-designated World War I memorial. And the preconstruction stages, when it came to the rough structure and the entry doors.

But the museum was not officially opened until last December 2nd. And today was my first opportunity to see it.

Architecturally, it's impressive. You approach down a great ramped walkway past grassy terraces and an oval reflecting pool and enter through monumental bronze doors. The entry to the exhibit space is across a glass-floored bridge, one storey beneath which are 900 field poppies, suspended in a clear medium; each poppy represents 1,000 people killed in the course of the war.

The exhibits take you through the background and causes of the Great War, its mode of fighting, its armaments, equipment, and artifacts. But especially they seek to make the visitor understand what it was like for the average soldier, slogging away in the trenches for months on end, enduring the mud, disease, and vermin that were in their way worse than the firefights that punctuated the seemingly endless stalemate. This is shown especially in the trench exhibit.

I remember when the trench exhibit was proposed. There were complaints because, some said, it would glorify war. They must have been out of their minds. How can a representati0n of a dank, fetid hellhole glorify anything?

My only complaint is that the exhibit designers chose to have these tableaux viewed either through openings about a foot square or through three inch diameter holes, both punched in a wall about what? Nine to twelve inches thick? Wouldn't be a problem, if the openings were splayed on the inside. But they're angled, so you don't get a straight shot in. And often, what you can't see is exactly what you most want to make out. I found my digital camera (set to 'natural light') was an indispensible tool. That's the only way I was able to see what was really going on inside. This needs to be rethought. Not just because it doesn't communicate fully, but more because it commits the artistic crime of making the viewer step outside his experience of the work of art and say, "Why on earth did the artist do that??" And the World War I presentation at the Liberty Memorial is a work of art.
As to the artifacts, there are wonderful things, most of them donated by WWI participants or their survivors as far back as 1919. I especially liked the long German pipes with their ornamented ceramic bowls. Then there are the ominous pieces, like the torpedo you can touch, that so like the ones that sunk so many civilian vessels, including the Lusitania itself.

In many cases, seeing various objects was like greeting old friends who've come up in the world. I remembered many of them from when they were on display in the overcrowded little Museum built in the the original 1926 campaign.I don't know what's in the old Museum space now. I had a ticket to it, and also to Memorial Hall (be prepared to weep, especially as you consider the Gold Star Mothers of then and now). But the new Liberty Memorial Museum needs at least three hours to visit by itself, and I only had an hour and a half to give.

Three hours for that, another hour at least for the old Museum and Memorial Hall, half an hour at least to go up the tower, then another half hour to take in the limestone composition of the Memorial as a whole-- you could spend the best part of a day there and not exhaust what the complex has to offer.
And you come away with a salutary sense of the continuing impact of the Great War and a deep appreciation of the sacrifice of those who fought to stop old tyrannies and bring in new hope.

No, it wasn't the War to End All Wars. It was the war of its time. These battles have to be fought again and again, literally and figuratively. And it's good to count the cost-- and give the credit, for then and for now.

Anyway, I recommend that any visitor to Kansas City make time to go. It's more than worth the $8 adult admission.

Modern Life

I've just spent the past seven-plus hours on the phone trying to get a clean copy of Windows XP onto my little IBM ThinkPad 240X. I have three operating systems sitting in parallel on my computer, the bootleg XP Professional that came with it, the genuine XP Professional I paid a fortune for last year, and a vestigal version of the Windows 98 OS that was on it when the computer was new.

I want one system. Period.

I've been everywhere by phone or computer since 2:30 or so-- MicroSoft, the IBM/Lenovo website, IBM support in Atlanta (three or four times), and an auxiliary group called Experts Live. I've got a charge against my credit card for a service I didn't ask for and isn't looking to do me any good. And still, nobody can tell me what I didn't already know from the last time I tried this marathon in March.

To-wit:

a) this computer can't boot from an external USB CD-ROM (which is all I have to get stuff onto it, unless you include the thumbdrive, which plugs into the same USB port), because

b) the BIOS doesn't support booting from a USB device, and

c) This is a hardware limitation. I have to use the Boot Disks for clean installing Windows XP.

I knew all that before I even picked up the phone! All I wanted today was to find out, where do I get the boot disks that weren't included when I bought the little laptop off eBay over a year ago? And how do I use them to get a clean, genuine, non-parallel version of XP onto the thing once I do have them?

But seven hours later . . .

The problem is, everyone wants to be helpful. Everyone wants to be the one who Finds the Solution. So all these techies take me through all the steps with the BIOS Setup, etc., etc., etc., that I've been through before. And I humor them, because hey, they might just magically find something the last guy didn't. And they never want to give up! They always want to try One More Thing! There's always One More Patch to download and run through the system!

In fact, I'm even trying installing a Data Killer program, to see if maybe that'll get rid of the redundant systems and let me start over.

But I'm probably whistling in the dark. The fact remains that for some silly reason, this laptop with no integral A:\ or C:\ drive will NOT allow one to boot via the USB port.

And what all these enthusiastic, well-meaning, but ultimately not very effective people should have told me in the beginning is

a) I can't get a boot disk from IBM. They just don't provide them anymore;

b) I might be able to get one from some website or via eBay. Maybe;

c) If I do find one, I should Google for some other website to tell me how to install it; and

d) It's sure as shootin' that I won't be able to install it without purchasing or borrowing an external A:/ drive that runs off the serial port. Or I can try some local computer geek who has one and can do it for me.

The hilarious thing is I was trying this now because that I wanted to take the laptop with me when I go away tomorrow. I'm assembling with the rest of the North American Welsh Choir to sing a concert in my hometown this coming Saturday. I'm bunking at a friend's, and I really don't want to have to borrow her computer all week. Or to shlep my bigger, heavier Toshiba Satellite along.

But it looks like I'll have to, one or the other, if I want to keep up on my email, blogs, accounts, and so on.

But think of it-- twenty years ago, this would not have been a problem. Computer? Why does anyone want a computer with her on vacation?

But I've travelled with a laptop since 1995, and how can you expect me to stop now?

"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah"

Today is the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, and the tenth anniversary of my ordination.

I wish I could also say it marked the completion of my tenth year of gospel ministry. But things haven't worked out that way since that evening when the presbyters laid hands on me in my home church and I was ordained a Minister of the Word and Sacrament.
My ministry has been marked by some success, some failure, and much interruption. In that I am told that I am following a usual course for women in ministry. A friend and colleague in my current presbytery did her Doctor of Ministry thesis on the rate of continuance of ordained women in full time parish ministry as of ten years after their ordinations. Her research demonstrated that the percentage is very low.

There are some who would say that that attrition is only right and proper and can be put down to the realization, by congregations or by the ordained women themselves, that females ought not to be ministers of the Christian faith.

But the real reasons are less heroic.

Sometimes women voluntarily abandon the Gospel plow for the same reasons men do: poor health, family issues, frustration, financial problems.

And as with male pastors, some women leave the ministry because their ministry temporarily or permanently has left them. Intradenominational conflicts, creeping congregationalism in connectional church bodies, modern individualism, the market mentality, and a lack of appreciation for the pastor's efforts and duties all lead pastors of both sexes to be fired or forced to resign without substantial cause. Some get right back into the church job search, some step away from pastoral work to breathe for a little while, and some give up parish ministry altogether, finding it necessary to serve Jesus Christ in some other way.

A consumerist sense of entitlement leads many churches literally to demand that their pastor be all things to all people. It doesn't matter that the pastor is faithfully and purely preaching the Gospel, reverently administering the sacraments, lovingly and conscientiously ministering pastoral care, uprightly representing the congregation in the community, and fruitfully participating in the higher bodies of the church. Anything or nothing is adequate to start a dump-the-pastor campaign. Did you not like the hymns last Sunday? Fire the pastor! Do you abhor the way your pastor combs his hair? Fire the pastor! Did the pastor wait till the day after her day off to come visit your aunt's best friend (who goes to that other church, but still--!) who had outpatient surgery to get her corns removed? Fire the pastor! After all, there's plenty more where this one came from! We'll get perfection next time!

But even where both men and women might suffer an interruption of ministry, I've noticed that with woman pastors, the ramifications of a perceived misstep are more severe and the tolerance for pastoral error is lower. Women pastors, especially those who are single, are expected to be both pastor and pastor's wife. Woe to her if she doesn't show up with a pie for the social, though her male predecessors never did! Women pastors are more susceptible to being pushed around by strong lay leaders, and more likely to be resented if they push back. Strong doctrine coming from the mouth of a woman is frequently considered "unpastoral"--a woman should look out for people's feelings! A woman pastor can be taken as anti-man, simply by virtue or (vice?) of having gone for ordination, and grievances will accumulate that she has no idea of. And let not a clergywoman betray any unsurehandedness on a church's tiller! Too often, I have observed, it will be put down to a lack of competence, rather than to simple inexperience or to systematic problems in the congregation itself. This tendency in higher judiciaries can work against male pastors' ministries as well. But isn't there just a wee bit more temptation to swoop in and rescue the poor little woman and send her off for counselling while the congregation goes its merry way?

To be fair to my current presbytery, they pretty much had to send in the cavalry on my last fulltime charge. The church had been chewing up and spitting out (male) pastors for the past twenty years, and my only distinction was that I was the catalyst that brought things to a head. But in that, my being a woman was instrumental. Even before I took that call, the Committee on Ministry in their formal interview said, "This church hasn't had a woman pastor before. Do you think [the Clerk of Session who was also the Moderator of the Pastor Nominating Committee] might want you because he thinks that as a woman you'd be easier to manipulate?" Oh, no, no, he was a nice, upstanding guy! We were in total agreement on doctrine and church leadership! He'd never do that!

Yes, he would. If he could have gotten a little twerp of a clergyman to play Mr. Collins to his Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that would have served his purpose. But as a woman, I was seen as ideal: the powerless figurehead, with the clerk and his family as the real motive force. As a woman, I would not make trouble; I would let things go on as they had in the three years they'd been without an installed pastoral head.

But, surprise! I did not. I could not. And as I was overmatched in my clerk, the presbytery had to step in. For the record, the clerk and his family jumped ship to another denomination, and the remnant of the congregation have settled down under the hand of a part-time Stated Supply, who is-- a woman.

. . . This was not supposed to be a rant, but a reflection. So, as I look forward to a future fulltime pastorate, let me reflect on what I would do differently. Let me consider what the interview process would be like, God helping, as I offered myself to a church as a woman pastor.

I would explore with a PNC what it would mean for the church to have a woman pastor. What would be the hopes? The fears? The expectations?

I would begin as I meant to go on. If I meant to be forthright and outspoken, I would be that in the interviews. The forms of cooperation I expected from my lay leaders, I'd make known from the first. I would do my best to make sure the committee saw me, and not just what I might represent to them as a "woman pastor." I would flee the temptation to be what they wanted me to be, instead of who I am.

I would be honest about my capabilities and what I could deliver. I would not fall into the trap of promising the moon when I can only bring a good three-way lamp. On the other hand, I would be willing to be stretched and to grow.

I would, God willing, have the courage to follow up on anything that seemed doubtful. I would not let my desire for a call turn my vision distorted and rosy. As I pursued such matters, I would do so with an attitude of "we all want what's best for the church. Let's see if I would be a good person to work together with you to achieve that best."

And I would look out for what I could bring the congregation, for how I could serve them, and not be swayed by the excitement of being wanted into accepting a position that isn't really mine.

Because, let's face it, it is very "feminine" to want to avoid conflict, to want to be nice, to want to be wanted. I have to acknowledge those tendencies in myself and turn them around for good. I have to face that every pulpit committee will inevitably see me as a woman first, though for much of the past decade my attitude has been, "My gender doesn't matter. What matters is preaching and ministering the Gospel."

But our God is a God who works through incarnation. He likes it so much, He took on flesh Himself. Every ministry, even the Word of God itself, is mediated through a human being: through Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, first of all, then through His ministers. I can't pretend to be a detached intelligence, a bodiless heart! I am who I am: a woman of a particular age, of a particular time and place, of particular education, appearance, and experiences. I am perceived, rightly or wrongly, based on others' interpretations of who and what I am.

So let me be honest and aware of that, and do my part to see that my being a woman pastor really and truly undergirds my being a woman pastor, to the glory of Jesus Christ. And may the God who called me guide me as I guide His church, remembering the closing hymn of my ordination service:

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty:
Hold me with Thy powerful hand!
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my strength and shield,
Be Thou still my strength and shield.

(William Williams Pantycelyn, d. 1791)

On Clothing, the Lack Thereof, and Time

Here I am at nearly 3:00 o'clock on a Sunday morning, and I'm finally printing out my sermon.

No excuses; maybe just a comment or two while the old printer works.

My texts deal with Christ's freeing of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke, and the freedom we have in Christ in Galatians. It struck me that both texts dealt with being clothed after being ill-clothed, inadequately clothed, or, in the demoniac's case, not clothed at all.

And it came to mind that I'd recently read a column by Suzanne Fields, about a nude bike ride a couple weeks ago, ostensibly held to protest global warming and automobile emissions (never mind the sort of emissions that pollute the air when they're not caught by one's clothes!). Seemed like something I could take off on (sorry), to show how people who equate nudity with freedom are only deluding themselves.

But when I brought the column up on line, I was disappointed. I'd forgotten that Ms. Fields had only used the protest as a jumping-off point for the sorry state of British society (a little misapplied, since this nude bike ride took place not only in London, but all over the world). And I'd forgotten that the statements that got me thinking there might be a connection were in the comments, and weren't exactly as I'd recalled.

Nevertheless, the misguided theme of nudity-as-freedom was there. So I Dogpiled the subject (you can Google, I'll Dogpile) to see what the promoters of this demonstration say for themselves. On the home page of the Chicago site I was greeted by a cartoon of a simpering modern-day Lady Godiva making do with a bicycle for a palfrey and wearing nothing but three strategically-placed little hearts and a tattoo or two. And to my grim amusement, under her image the legend declared, "Protest oil dependency and showcase your gorgeous self love."

I think they meant "self-love," but the kicker was this: Above her was the title of the event, and writhing out of one of the i's was a veritable serpent, with an apple in its mouth, offering it to the naked cycling lass as to a new Eve!

You silly idiots! Giving into that ancient serpent and his bloody offer is why we have to wear clothes in the first place! That and our "gorgeous self love"! If you really want to "get back to the Garden" (as the song "Woodstock" puts it), it ain't gonna happen by accepting more produce from talking snakes!

Of course, I couldn't put that into my sermon. The "self love" motto, yes, but not the cartoon. Churchgoing people spend all week watching who knows what on the TV and at the movies, but heaven forfend the preacher should admit on Sunday morning to having seen an informational site with naked people on it! Oh, yeah, we're supposed to guide people through the hard-hitting realities of this fallen world, but we're to do it in total unawareness of those realities ourselves!

Not that I believe we should go out and sin on purpose, as some people advocate, to appreciate what Jesus has saved us from. And if a nude cyclist protest was ever held here in the Valleys, I would stay safely indoors with my curtains drawn.

Not that I fear so much falling prey to the sin of lust. No, I'm too liable to the sin of derision and disdain. Most people's bodies simply will not stand public exposure.

What's the other comment? Oh, that I have a sudden paranoia that the church where I'm preaching tomorrow may have changed their hours for the summer. Not that they ever told me they had. But a year ago at this time, another church in the same presbytery just happened to forget to inform me they were starting an hour earlier, and only the fact that I arrived thirty minutes before what I thought was the correct hour got me there in time to deliver the Gospel reading and the sermon. Then guess whose fault it was?

Happily, I have my contact elder's home number, and can call her in the morning to make sure.

Meanwhile, I need to iron my preaching dress before I retire for such sleep as I'm going to get. Otherwise, I will be improperly clothed!

New Sermon Blog

I've always wanted to post my sermons, since I started this blog in 2005. But I couldn't figure out how to attach another page to it, and I didn't want to overwhelm my day to day musings (blatherings?) with a lot of text. So I've started a new blog just for the sermons.

I'm calling it "Not Exactly as Preached." In plain English this means, "When I took my manuscript into the pulpit on Sunday, the Holy Spirit told me I'd better clarify this, expand on that, cut that other, display more of Christ's compassion here, be more forceful against sin and bad doctrine there. And to the best of my fallen human ability, I did it. But just now I don't have time/am not ambitious enough to reconstruct what actually came out of my mouth. So here you have the working drafts. May the Lord bless them to your edification and use."

Amen.

Oh! By the way, it was not a sung Eucharist at the Lutheran church last evening. I was told I might chant it, if I wanted . . . but I was also told the congregation can't carry a tune in a bucket. Sadly, my informant was correct.

So I said the liturgy in the usual way.

For the sung version: Another time, another place, Lord willing!

Oh, Joy!

Thank you, Jesus!

The USB-parallel port printer cable and extension I ordered on line the other day have come, they're connecting my old printer and my new computer, and they work!

And I have my sermon for this evening printed out in one go!

Yes, for this evening. Tonight and this Sunday I'm supplying the pulpit at a Lutheran church down the Ohio River, thanks to the interdemoninational agreement between the PCUSA and the ELCA.

It'll be my first time celebrating the Lord's Supper at a Lutheran Church. This congregation chants part of the liturgy, which I shall rather enjoy . . . except that I don't know the tunes yet. And I'm told that Thursdays are always a capella.

Meaning I'd better get ready and get on the road. Maybe if I arrive early enough, someone will be there to go over the music with me.