Sometimes you realise you've passed a milestone when it's already in your past. Other days, there's that sudden excitement when you realise that this, this very moment, constitutes such a marker. And today was such a day. Our little congregation has come so far, and today a new lay leader presided over a service of communion from the reserved sacrament for her first time. She was outwardly serene and calm, and the support from the twenty or so in the congregation was tangible. And I found as I preached a sermon over which I worried I might not have spent enough time that it flowed irresistibly from the bullet-pointed list I'd prepared and I was enjoying myself.
We are not yet without a priest, but the vacancy will be upon us before we know it. It's going to be interesting, and on today's showing, exciting. But I'm even more convinced that we shall never be able to go back to the way we were. Father will never know best again.
That rather depends on which Father/Mother you are talking about - doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteah, but you have granted me lots of 'mother knows best' moments when I've been teaching something.
ReplyDeleteThe trick, I think, is that people shouldn't be sent into tasks unprepared. But then we have to trust them to get on with it.
One regret of my time here is that the lay team carries such responsibility when I'm away that I do more than I should on the days I'm here. There are other ways of patterning a service that balance lay and ordained ministries.
Lay led communion from the reserved sacrament.
ReplyDeleteChris doing ALL the sermons.
Mmm
I can't say I'm not tempted.
And so you should be MP! Wonderful congregations in the midst of so much natural beauty! And Christine thrown in for nothing!
ReplyDeleteNothing?
ReplyDeleteBloomin' 'eck!
I'd pay good money.
Now, now, boys...
ReplyDelete;-)