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captainsblogBelieve it or not, the Preachy Thang today went fine:) Eleanor and I went out to the eastern edge of the burbs here, where things get a little, shall we say, gritty, and I preached the same gospel I would have preached in our safe RSWP1 pulpit- and lived to tell the tale:)
You can read it, if you incline your ears to such, at this google link. The three symbols I mention at the beginning were the props I brought for the childrens sermon, in which I told them that "things" were nice, and new "things" were nice to get, but that it's not right to just live to acquire All The "Things", and that the best "things" are the ones that you keep as memories of people and places and times. I brought the broken-spine Bible my original church gave me in third grade; my original Mets hat from probably the early 70s; and this, purchased just the previous afternoon:
That got us to "Live Long and Prosper," which the sermon then riffed on. When I first came in, I kept a promise to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
floundah, one of the folk who saw my preview yesterday and encouraged me to use the sound effect: basically, if the organist was a 68-year-old retired schoolmarm who would probably MI or TIA if I did it, I would pass, but if it was a cool-cat kinda second-job gigging musician like the one we got the last time I did this, I was in.
Chris, I'm happy to say, was one cool cat, and when I showed him this-
- he was perfectly fine with it, came in right on cue, and got the appropriate laugh from most of the congregation.
They were all fine with the message, and I dismissed them with a fine Vulcan benediction which I said would be Christ's message to them- "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." None of them seemed especially redneck on the way out. Eleanor wound up making contact with a congregation member who's actually an ordained minister but whose work for the church is at a local nursing home; she knows the work our own Barbara does, who Eleanor's talking about helping in that kind of "faith adventure," and was very encouraging about her finding her way in this.
In the end, about the only sign of true cluelessness in the whole place was a newspaper clipping I saw on the back wall. It dated to 1953, perhaps the only time a sanctuary this small actually made the Big City Buffalo Evening News, and was for a church fundraiser in which congregants volunteered their services (babysitting, gardening, whatever) to the highest bidder. Noble, yes; calling it a "slave auction," though? A bit too 1853 for my liking.2
Overall, though? They liked me- they really, really liked me. Now to see if I can explain Firefly to them next time;)
----
1 Repressed Suburban White People. See note 2.
2 I might have said something to the effect of, "hmmmm, black folk don't come round here much, do they?" except, ummm, for the fact that our RSWP congregation doesn't much, either:O
You can read it, if you incline your ears to such, at this google link. The three symbols I mention at the beginning were the props I brought for the childrens sermon, in which I told them that "things" were nice, and new "things" were nice to get, but that it's not right to just live to acquire All The "Things", and that the best "things" are the ones that you keep as memories of people and places and times. I brought the broken-spine Bible my original church gave me in third grade; my original Mets hat from probably the early 70s; and this, purchased just the previous afternoon:
That got us to "Live Long and Prosper," which the sermon then riffed on. When I first came in, I kept a promise to
floundah, one of the folk who saw my preview yesterday and encouraged me to use the sound effect: basically, if the organist was a 68-year-old retired schoolmarm who would probably MI or TIA if I did it, I would pass, but if it was a cool-cat kinda second-job gigging musician like the one we got the last time I did this, I was in.Chris, I'm happy to say, was one cool cat, and when I showed him this-
- he was perfectly fine with it, came in right on cue, and got the appropriate laugh from most of the congregation.
They were all fine with the message, and I dismissed them with a fine Vulcan benediction which I said would be Christ's message to them- "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." None of them seemed especially redneck on the way out. Eleanor wound up making contact with a congregation member who's actually an ordained minister but whose work for the church is at a local nursing home; she knows the work our own Barbara does, who Eleanor's talking about helping in that kind of "faith adventure," and was very encouraging about her finding her way in this.
In the end, about the only sign of true cluelessness in the whole place was a newspaper clipping I saw on the back wall. It dated to 1953, perhaps the only time a sanctuary this small actually made the Big City Buffalo Evening News, and was for a church fundraiser in which congregants volunteered their services (babysitting, gardening, whatever) to the highest bidder. Noble, yes; calling it a "slave auction," though? A bit too 1853 for my liking.2
Overall, though? They liked me- they really, really liked me. Now to see if I can explain Firefly to them next time;)
----
1 Repressed Suburban White People. See note 2.
2 I might have said something to the effect of, "hmmmm, black folk don't come round here much, do they?" except, ummm, for the fact that our RSWP congregation doesn't much, either:O
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 08:41 pm (UTC)In regards to RSWP, eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. My old parish gloried in two (count 'em, two!) black members, one of whom was in the choir.
Good job working in that musical cue!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 12:01 am (UTC)::goes, checks::
Studio. Good. And it's "Andraé." More trespasses to be forgiven for;)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-21 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-22 05:08 pm (UTC)