reactions to a second-hand story


when you happen upon someone's personal blog, you should know what you are getting. one person's opinions. one person's stories that mean enough to them to share. one person's world. take it or leave it. when you visit http://www.hannahandme.blogspot.com/, you are looking at the world through kevin o'kelley colored glasses. for better or for worse (probably for worse), i. am. the show. and if you are interested or bored enough to use your spare time to glance at a post, you shouldn't be surprised, necessarily, by something you read. unless you've really pissed me off, there's a really good chance you are not going to be personally offended. that's not (usually) how i roll. if you feel like your time on this site is not wasted, then i am truly honored. if you leave with some perspective that you weren't expecting from a post that led with a picture of the dashing tim hudson, then i am happy to have pushed some button in the depths of you that was looking to be pushed anyway. i grant you that my random musings on what's wrong with my braves or alabama football or my church or what's right with my children aren't likely to add anything significant to your day, but, again, you know what you're getting here. i am the show. and i am not that exciting.

i should be able to say the same about a worship experience at any church. in any worship experience, who should be the show? why, god, of course. but, churches are attended by people and worship services tend to be led by alpha-personalities that will not crumble beneath the magnitude of being god's voice on any given sunday to the "little people" in the congregation. and believe me, from someone that's been there and done that, the magnitude is a weight that i was never meant to carry. in a small group, i can add to the conversation. shoot, in a small group, i am fairly certain that i can even facilitate a conversation. in god's house, though? on sunday morning? with god's people there hungry to be fed? i am confident my own hubris would get in the way from me being consistently good and worthy of any pulpit for more than a showcase appearance. thusly, i repeat and clearly state my point. leading worship, attempting to be the voice of god for a congregation craving to hear Him, is an incredibly tough job. that being said, it should not be a job that is above accountability. it should not be a job that is beyond someone saying out loud, "you, sir/ma'am, are not the show. in His house, He should be the show."

i thank god that i was working sunday morning, because i have now been resting on a positive "church" cloud for over a week after caroline's baptism service. according to sources near and dear to me, sources that know what grooves and what doesn't groove with regards to my wants out of a worship service, sunday would have far from grooved.

likely obstacles that i would have encountered sunday morning include:

- the choir director pointing out before a hymn that the congregation was not into the previous singing of "sweet, sweet spirit" and urging us to show more visible signs of "sweetness" on our faces.

- bass booming from underneath the sanctuary calling our attention to the service that was scheduled to begin at 1100.

- a solo from the pastor.

- a serious stretch of an analogy between children of the holocaust dying due to cruel experiments and our need for god's "touch".

- the loss of control by the pastor due to his being shaken over remembering his mother's influence and passing some 24 years ago.

- crying. lots of crying.

i come here today not to judge another man's way of performing his duties as our choir director. i come here today not to judge one man's need to hear himself sing. alone. often. i come here today not to judge how one man chooses to remember his mother on mother's day in front of his congregation. i come here today not to judge the fact that grief is a powerful animal, one that can take hold of a man a full 24 years after a premature loss. i come here today not to judge crying, no matter how much i hate it. but i do come here today to ask one rhetorical question.

by the end of the carnival (my words, not my "source"'s) that was worship at humc this past sunday, if you were to ask a person that was visiting our church for the very first time, "who was the show?", how would they answer?

would it be the self-important choir director? the bass, thumping from what used to be the youth center? would it be the holocaust babies? would it be the solo-singing pastor? or the sobbing pastor? the pastor's mother? or god?

the tone of this post, obviously, gives you my answer. then again, i am looking through kevin o'kelley colored glasses. i could be wrong. i am sure that the vulnerability that our pastor showed in the pulpit could be seen as moving, courageous even. the means to a service that pushed a button in the depths of a person that was looking to be pushed anyway.

maybe my button is just broken.