Today's whine....no one told me I'd be celebrating communion.

[Critters2]

So I go to the Association Meeting yesterday, and as I'm walking into opening worship my ACM takes me aside and asks if I'd be willing to celebrate communion. So, I look dazed for a few moments and ask where the liturgy is printed in the bulletin. "No", she says, "but you've been doing this long enough, you prob'ly have it memorized." Then she grabs another pastor and asks if she'd concelebrate with me. This one says she does have the liturgy memorized. She turns to me and says, "Why don't I do it up to the Sanctus, and then you can do it up to the Great Acclamation."

And suddenly I realize that she's got the whole high church-y Word and Sacrament I thing memorized, whereas, if it were completely left up to me, I'd have done a more off-the-cuffy thing with an ad libbed invitation, the words of institution (which I DO have memorized), a short consecration with an epiclesis, and then just let everyone have their bread and juice. I was a nervous wreck.

So, this other pastor says, "Let's go have prayer first". So we sneak off in a corner, all the while I'm trying to pull the liturgy out of my head--or wherever--and she starts to pray. I try to focus on the prayer, but I'm near to a panic. So, she ends her prayer, but there's a long pause....then she says "Amen", and I realize that the long pause was supposed to be where I add in my prayer, but I didn't, cuz I was focused on other things. So, now, I'm thinking that she was there praying for me, and I didn't return the favor, so she already thinks I'm a selfish creature, and when I fumble my way through a liturgy she assumes I should have memorized, she'll think I'm a selfish moran to boot!!!

So, I sit down for the start of the service, and look at the bulletin, and my name is PRINTED IN THE BULLETIN!!! The committee had had me in mind to do this all along--but hadn't bothered to tell me!!!
I could've either printed out a service, or yes, probably memorized the damn thing, if I'd known this was going to happen.

So, we get to the communion point in the service, and I go to the communion table, and see no elements. I look down the aisle and here's my colleague walking up the aisle with the elements, and she gets to me and whispers "I thought I'd do the offertory". And I'm thinking "Right, the offertory, that's part of it, too. I'm an idiot."

So, she does the whole service verbatim from the Book of Worship (which I almost never use), and finishes the Sanctus and turns to me. But at this point, I know I'm screwed, so I just go ahead and do the off the cuff ad libbed stuff I'm comfortable with. I mean, what the hell! So, I offer a consecratory prayer, mentioning the mystical union, and being absolutely certain to include an epiclesis, (at which point I also silently asked the Holy Spirit to just get me through this!). And then the magical words "The gifts of God for the people of God. Come for all things are ready."! Yay! I'd done it, and it sounded like I knew what I was doing.

So, afterwards I take my seat and the pastor of the largest church in the Association, turns around and asks if he can have a copy of my prayer of consecration. "That was very profound, really quite beautiful."

Well, all I can do is tell him the truth--it was spur of the moment and off the cuff. He responds "Wow. Just wow."

Okay, so here's the communion service I used today--which I got from Worship Ways, a worship resource from the national church. I'll admit, it's shorter than I usually use, and I considered adding to it, but didn't in the end. This is NOT Word and Sacrament 1:

http://www.ucc.org/worship/worship-ways/pdfs/making-room-for-all-god-s-people.pdf

Now, if the National Church is publishing brief communion services like this, why would anyone assume I always use, let alone have memorized, Sacrament 1.

And my real point to all of this is...If you KNOW you want someone to do something at a meeting, LET THEM KNOW AHEAD OF TIME!!!

That was my weekend. How was yours?

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Gah! I hate stuff like that.

I don't mind public speaking, but I don't like doing when a few minutes before, I didn't know I was going to do it.

Geez, especially something like Communion - really shows how in the UCC Communion can have a low priority. Even when we know it 'has to be done' (like a gathering of the greater church), it can still be rather unthought out.

Reminds me of an Association Minister I know who told me that many years ago, he and an ordinand were processing up at the beginning of the ordination service, and the AM asked the ordinand, "Who's preaching?" and the ordinand said, "I assumed you were."

Egads!

My weekend was quite wonderful, actually. Everything went quite swimmingly, and I made a pot of New England Clam Chowder and some homemade bread, and when I supped on it, the bread was freshly hot, slathered in butter, and eaten with the wonderful parmesan-like cheese I'd bought that morning at the cheese vendor's. Yummy!

Other than that, I really can't think of anything that happened. Probably why my weekend was so wonderful - I didn't do anything. :-)

[Kajsa]

2. Well done, Critters!

Considering you had no time to prepare,
you did an excellent job!

:applause:

I know a bit about flying on a wing and a prayer.

Sometimes I arrive at my substitute teaching assignments
to find no lesson plan, 40+ bored students and two hour
block periods!

:)

[RevCheesehead]

3. In my smaller church, I almost always improvise the Great Thanksgiving.

My advisor for Elder's Orders encouraged us to think for ourselves, and said "it's a pretty good mark if you can create your own communion liturgy.... anybody can memorize; but do you really know it?"

Seems like you do. :)

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. How intimidating! I'm glad you were able to make it work. I'm not a minister but

in our adult Sunday school classes people are asked to do the opening and closing prayers. Man, I really have a hard time with that, though I must say I am getting better at it as I try to forget my self-consciousness and just have a really open heart and say what comes from within. Ditto for standing up and giving testimony during the service. (Sometimes I sit down and I have no idea what I had just said. Either I am really channeling the Spirit or I am just so freaked out about speaking publicly that my brain goes blank as a self-defense mechanism! LOL)