this is the sound of settling


so, i am two weeks into 2012, one week out from having my yearly scan, and i am nowhere near adjusted to what it means or doesn't mean to not be lay leader at the church anymore. as i wrote a couple weeks ago in my resolutions look-back, there was a great deal of fluidity, with regards to my effort that is, that came with the position anyway. after we get past the scan, we'll evaluate my view of that experience more fully.

there are a couple things happening right now at the church, though, that i am pretty excited about.

wait. what?

first things first.

i didn't have a great opportunity or the right amount of time to analyze here at HACAJAM the cancellation of wednesday night dinners this spring. to reopen that can of worms, given where we arrived as of tomorrow, would be counterproductive, but a short visit back will offer some context. according to our budget, wednesday nights had been bleeding money for a few years. our food costs were through the roof. our attendance, both for the dinner itself and the programming that followed, was in decline. knowing that our cook, ms. ellen, was retiring from the church in may of 2011, the church used the opportunity to effort in taking a qualitative look at what our congregation thought of the current wednesday night structure.

do you come?

why do you come?

do you like it when you come?

why don't you come?

would you come again?

what can we change to entice you to come?

how much would we have to pay you?

these and other questions were asked and the response was fairly tepid. the consensus seemed to be that there was a small minority that were going to be agitated if wednesday nights as we knew them went away. out of "financial concerns", there would be an even smaller minority that were going to be agitated if they didn't. and the majority of the church didn't seem to care all that much.

and so, programming decided we would move towards a discussion group model. dinners within those groups choosing to meet on wednesday would be handled by the groups, themselves. otherwise. no dinner. no corporate fellowship opportunity. the church would do that for 6-12 weeks. we'd see how it went.

from everything i heard (i did not participate in the first wave of options), those that participated in the discussion groups enjoyed their experience.

but, still, something seemed to be missing.

a facebook thread happened that may or may not have played any role in the eventual return of wednesday night dinners. other conversations happened. a (paid) volunteer emerged. an idea was pitched. accepted. more discussion groups were planned and arranged outside and around the renewal of something our church had done for a long time.

yada, yada, yada. wednesday night dinner, version "we take reservations now and only prepare for a specific number", begins tomorrow night.

for me, i am extremely excited. i hope i am not excited merely because i am comfortable with something "that we've always done", and i am not sure what led to the setting of the time at 5:00, making it super difficult for any working members of the church to get there. i am not sure if i want to know. right now, i just don't care. given the time obstacle, the fact that 59 reservations were made anyway announces loud and clear that there is a need being filled by the mid-week dinner at church opportunity. there being several different discussion group options after dinner is a plus, too. here's hoping the facilitators in those groups will be open to new folks showing up a week late if there are, indeed, folks looking for an after dinner conversation. and here's hoping that tomorrow night is the beginning of something new and fun and exciting that our church can build from and not feel obligated to.

that's possible, you know? we just have to think about it.

to the second thing at humc that i am loving right now.

wait? "loving"???

the best kept secret at our church is happening on sunday nights at 6:30. do you know what it is? chances are you don't, since there were only 8 of us there last week.

for the first time that i can remember, we have a sermon post-mortem discussion group!

oh, how i have longed for something to excite me about worship.

don't get me wrong. it's not worship. not yet (although we are still trying to work on that issue).

what is the primary take-away from your sunday morning worship experience? sure, you may have really enjoyed the communion service one week. or you may have really enjoyed the choir's anthem or the hymn selection on another. or maybe some crazy person wowed you with justin bieber and popcorn during children's moment and you couldn't help but be happy for the rest of the afternoon. chances are, though, that the thing you look forward to and remember the most is the morning's message. at humc, for what feels like hundreds of years now, the message is what has fueled the service. two liturgical readings bookend the choir's weekly showpiece, the pastor gets up, and goes to feeding his "sheep". either you take away something from the sermon or you don't, but the sermon is the show. everything else is pregame.

for years, as is the case with you i am sure, many of my sunday after-church lunches will involve my family and friends' take on the sermon. did it move me? annoy me? did he/she sweat too much? read too much? use his/her serious voice too much? tell too many jokes? try to be too cute too much? knock it out of the park? did i even pay attention? something else?

as far as i can remember, we've never had a discussion group built around exploring what was said versus how it was said versus what we heard versus what does it all mean? and now that we have it, i have zero idea why we haven't had ten of these groups happening for years! the group that gathered sunday was a wonderful cross-section of what our church currently offers. several different age groups and social groups and life-experiences were represented, all bringing their own unique take-away from how they received the morning's message to the table.

the beautiful part for me was that it removed most of what has come to annoy me with our worship service in general, the execution, and asked me to place more emphasis on what i process and look forward to talking about later on in the day with a group that i am certain will have different takes than me.

for one sunday night, i had fun at church, and it had nothing to do with limbo or the weeds, which, to be honest, i wasn't sure was going to happen again.

for one night, i looked forward to coming back the next week to see if the experience was a fluke or something that i could actively begin recruiting people towards.

for one night, not only did i leave with a figurative smile on my face, but i also left looking forward to coming back on wednesday, to have dinner with friends and family and my church and to go to yet another discussion group worth my time.  

what is going on around here?

i don't know, man. but i like it. i like being excited about something huffman is offering. something that isn't a once a year, stand-alone event. i like being super-pissed when i hear about people visiting and choosing to join other churches because i know that we could and should offer something every bit as relevant as they can.

if. we. so. choose.

so, why don't we choose?

for one night, i did.

to many more.