Skip to main content

Rule 7b: Communion always takes longer than you think in Thousand Oaks


It's a small church. You might think you won't even get through the long hymn.
But then you will find yourself on Easter Sunday using up ALL of your post-service music and then some before communion is done.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The feeble struggle

November 1 marked All Saints Day, which many celebrated this past Sunday. Lutherans are in the End Times season of the church year, so many will celebrate "Saints triumphant Sunday" in the next couple weeks if they have yet to have that saints in heaven theme... And still many will not feel like celebrating. There's a whole group of people whose loved one died right in the middle of that season. Or who are about to die. Part of the challenge is that it's a day where you're supposed to be joyful. It's a day that is supposed to bring relief and comfort and peace. And objectively, it does. There is a peace that comes with knowing your dad's future (or now present) is secure. But there's a tricky thing about grief... As soon as you are "supposed to" or "should" feel a certain way at a certain time, you're pretty much guaranteed to feel the opposite. There actually are no "shoulds" in grief. You'll be happy...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why I don't like church...

It's a family thing. Worship is a family thing. In the rest of my life I might be independent, but when I enter the church, I become part of a family. My dad was the rock, the spiritual head of that family. It doesn't matter if you're 4, 14, or 24, worshipping together as a family is a tremendous blessing from God. Having a father who is a strong leader for your family is exactly how God designed marriage and family. And he's not there. He's gone. And even though he reared me to be a strong Christian woman, I'm weaker without him. Because I've lost my spiritual head. I've lost an important role God gives us fathers to fill. A role that is normally replaced with a husband, and not an empty void. Beyond the immediate family thing, the church itself is a family of believers. It's a family thing for everyone. Losing part of that family changes the dynamic. Church friends knew us as a family. Relationships are built to a degree not between indiv...
Post a Comment
Read more

The name on the grave marker

There's a common expression: "the final nail in the coffin." It means the end of something, right? To use another idiom, the final nail in the coffin is also "the last straw." Well a coworker aptly said that seeing the name on the grave marker is the true "final nail in the coffin." There are a lot of final nails in the coffin for grief. Watching your father take his last breath, seeing his body carted out of the house, seeing him lying in the coffin, seeing the coffin carried out of the hearse and to his final resting place are all "nails in the coffin." But nothing is quite the unexpected sucker punch to the gut that getting this photo emailed to you is. I'd change the idiom if I could, from "nail in the coffin" to "name on the gravestone." Seeing your father's name carved in stone- his gravestone - brings about a finality like nothing else. His body is no longer hidden away in the ground. His death...
Post a Comment
Read more