Friday, April 22, 2011

Maundy thursday rehash

We had a somewhat disappointing Maundy Thursday service this year. There were only seven of us present: myself, Jane, Drew, Carrie (and Anna), as well as Jim, Lucy and Brenda. I mean no offense to anyone, but that just doesn't warrant spending the amount of time and energy necessary to plan a service like we had.

What bothers me is that we used to have quite a few people attend this service. I'm talking like 20-30 at one time. I don't know what happened. So, some things I'm thinking about for next year:

1). Just don't have it at all. I mean, apparently no one would mind.
2). Just have a meal, and maybe read a few Scriptures. We used to have quite a few when we had a meal - even though we also did communion, feetwashing, and sometimes the Stations of the Cross as well. If we did a meal I would probably want to require people to rsvp though. I wouldn't want to prepare something to eat for 7 people and then have 20 show up (or vice versa).
3). Just ask the church board (our elders) to be in charge of it. If they wanted to have something, then they could plan and organize it. If they didn't think it was necessary, then it would be their responsibility. This would probably be the best option, but my fear is they would think I was punishing them or something. Which is not the case. Leadership development and making disciples and all that is just tough stuff, and I really struggle with it. I probably have a tendency to ask too little of people, and maybe what I need to do is ask more of them. I dunno.

At any rate, I'm just thinking out loud. I don't know what we should do next year. I just know that whatever happened this year was not good. Oh, it was a good service. Actually, it was a great little service - I thought. But I don't think most people understand the time and energy it takes for things like this, and what it looks like to others when so few are involved (especially those who are supposed to be the leaders in the church). But... what do I know.

2 comments:

Jim L said...

"Just ask the church board (our elders) to be in charge of it."

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

It is sometimes odd watching from afar, in a much bigger congregation, obviously, how much you struggle with trying to do it all yourself. I don't mean that as a criticism of you, or your church members for that matter. Just that in our church it is different, and the elders "run" it a lot more. Which perhaps frees our pastors up for a bit more of the "spiritual leadership" stuff.

dan said...

Jim,
Yes, that has always been a problem for me. I came from a church similar to yours that had strong elder leadership, and my church now is just not like that. It is still hard for me to get used to. Another part of the problem is that the old leaders here didn't do a very good job of training up new leaders, or involving the younger people in anything; so as they left or died off... there is just somewhat of a leadership void. That's somewhat good in some circumstances, but not in all. And, to be clear, this doesn't mean that I "have to do everything myself" or anything like that... People are great about doing things they are asked to do. They're just somewhat passive as leaders. Again, not always bad, but somewhat frustrating also.

Thanks for chiming in.