Two Gifts

I have received two lovely gifts in the past couple of days and I'm sure that the folk that offered them had no idea how meaningful they were despite my thanks. On Sunday morning one of the men who was at worship approached me. He observed that in the year or so I have been at Bridge St. UC I have nudged the congregation toward the 21st century in terms of visual display, music, bulletin covers and even format for the sermon. He felt that we were headed in the right direction and wanted me to know. Yesterday a woman asked to meet with me and at the end of our time together she told me why she found my sermons accessible, and offered that as a visual learner the use of images help her comprehend the message.

I appreciate that telling you this might seem self-serving, but I'm sharing because I found the feedback so valuable. These were clearly expressed observations out of their experience in worship. Often clergy are trying to figure whether what they are saying and doing makes a lick of sense to those who are sitting before them. We are trying to be faithful to scripture while speaking a word of life and truth into this rather tumultuous and uncertain moment in the church. We hope that the worship experience as a whole will open those gathered to God's holy and life-changing presence. It's a tall order, and we often feel less than adequate for the task, even after years in leadership. Maybe because of years in leadership. We don't want to get stale with the passage of time.

As I say, these two individuals couldn't possibly know how encouraging their gifts were, but I'm grateful. Neither were gushy, just honest. Now if they had been equally honest and critical, I might have dismissed them, but I'll take the positives! Bye the way, I tried for gender balance in the cartoons but it appears that only male worship leaders get lampooned.