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captainsblogOur church debuted a new informal Saturday night service today. In many ways, it was a very old informal Saturday night service- the format dates back to 1727 and was intended to duplicate aspects of first century apostolic gatherings. Its centerpiece is a sharing of bread and water- not Communion in a sacramental sense (meaning, among other things, that the very good bread got eaten on the side during the ensuing spaghetti supper), but a similar passing of peace and fellowship among those present.
We had twelve, plus our pastoral assistant officiating. Nobody ran from the room and hopefully nobody gets arrested and crucified tomorrow. It had only some minor bugs- apparently Corey prepared the service text on an iPad, because autocorrect turns every instance of "thy" into "they" and made her 18th century Wesleyan prayer sound surprisingly ghetto- but all in all it went nicely.
As the bread was passed, we were asked to each say a word as we served the loaf to our neighbor. Me being me, I forgot to hold the loaf for Betty on my right, but I ran at the mouth with a story that seemed fitting to the occasion, from this morning's Only a Game podcast from WBUR. It featured the tale of a young woman from a slum in Uganda's capital, who found escape from her plight through a ministry that taught the game of chess to young people there. There's no tradition of the game in the nation- their native tongue doesn't even have a word for "chess"- but as she worked her way up the competitive ladder and briefly escaped her slum (and, indeed, the rest of her country) for the first time in her life, she experienced what we call a First World Problem. The author of a book about it (who read from it on the show) tells it better than I could, or did: listen to it there, or read the key line I more-or-less quoted tonight:
Phiona was taken to the restaurant inside her Sudan hotel. When the waiter brought her a menu, she looked puzzled and said, "What's this?" Patiently, they explained to her that it was so she could choose what she wanted to eat. In all her life before that, she had never gotten to make such a choice.
Tonight, we have gotten to make such a choice- not only of what to eat, but of how to direct our energies after we have eaten.
Then I shut up and ate spaghetti, brownies and applesauce.
----
Eleanor and I have been having our doubts about the long-term future of the ministries of this place. Some of that doubt came from a recent unfortunate incident between her and a church member at Eleanor's place of employment, but it goes beyond that. Nights like tonight give me more hope that we can overcome those doubts. I've yet to decide, but I'm happy that we get to choose.
We had twelve, plus our pastoral assistant officiating. Nobody ran from the room and hopefully nobody gets arrested and crucified tomorrow. It had only some minor bugs- apparently Corey prepared the service text on an iPad, because autocorrect turns every instance of "thy" into "they" and made her 18th century Wesleyan prayer sound surprisingly ghetto- but all in all it went nicely.
As the bread was passed, we were asked to each say a word as we served the loaf to our neighbor. Me being me, I forgot to hold the loaf for Betty on my right, but I ran at the mouth with a story that seemed fitting to the occasion, from this morning's Only a Game podcast from WBUR. It featured the tale of a young woman from a slum in Uganda's capital, who found escape from her plight through a ministry that taught the game of chess to young people there. There's no tradition of the game in the nation- their native tongue doesn't even have a word for "chess"- but as she worked her way up the competitive ladder and briefly escaped her slum (and, indeed, the rest of her country) for the first time in her life, she experienced what we call a First World Problem. The author of a book about it (who read from it on the show) tells it better than I could, or did: listen to it there, or read the key line I more-or-less quoted tonight:
Phiona was taken to the restaurant inside her Sudan hotel. When the waiter brought her a menu, she looked puzzled and said, "What's this?" Patiently, they explained to her that it was so she could choose what she wanted to eat. In all her life before that, she had never gotten to make such a choice.
Tonight, we have gotten to make such a choice- not only of what to eat, but of how to direct our energies after we have eaten.
Then I shut up and ate spaghetti, brownies and applesauce.
----
Eleanor and I have been having our doubts about the long-term future of the ministries of this place. Some of that doubt came from a recent unfortunate incident between her and a church member at Eleanor's place of employment, but it goes beyond that. Nights like tonight give me more hope that we can overcome those doubts. I've yet to decide, but I'm happy that we get to choose.