Field Notes #4: Worship Planning and Church Council Meeting

Today was pretty low-key. I've got to do better about getting myself going in the mornings, though. I can pretty much come into the office whenever I need to, but I've found that I'm not remotely productive at home (er, at the Edwards'), so I either need to go into the office earlier or find a nearby coffee shop to hit up before going to church (I like that idea better). It'll be different once I move into the parsonage, but I'm gonna try a new approach tomorrow.

I fleshed out and completed my side of the Learning-Serving Covenant today, which my supervisor and I began working on yesterday. I feel lame that I have such vague "learning goals"--basically that I want to get more of the big picture of church ministry. Lame. But both accurate and challenging. :)

I spent most of today working on worship stuff. I dove into some reading and resources, many of which my pastor had given me, others I had brought along myself. I started picking out songs that might work for worship this Sunday based on the lectionary texts (Val will probably preach on Romans 5:1-5), which also involved me revising my arrangement of "Be Thou My Vision," pulling out crumpled scores of Gary's hymn settings, and hacking into Gary's Planning Center Online account to swipe charts (don't tell). I'll be interested to see how worship pans out at HCUMC this summer with the one "blended" service. I'm pretty excited about it. Hopefully we can successfully walk the line between "traditional" and "contemporary" (though I really liked the third "Favorite Quotation" that I posted here from one of the books I looked at today).

I went home around 4, went for a short run (goodness it was hot out), showered and hung out for a bit before going out to dinner (Showmars for the second time both in the past 3 days and ever in my life) with the folks who live next door to where I'm staying, the Reids. Their daughter Abby is about to graduate from high school and go on to App State. Emily and Neil are both very active in the church, so we went straight from dinner to a church council meeting. I was mostly there to observe and just to say hi, and I won't lie and say it was the most scintillating hour of my life, but it was interesting to get a brief glimpse into just about every facet of the church, and I appreciated their efficiency. I've sat through church meetings that made me want to gouge my own eyeballs out with a spoon, but this group was on target, making sure they didn't miss anything but also not wasting time.

After Emily dropped me off back at the Edwards', I went for a barefoot stroll around the neighborhood, talked to Gary on the phone for a while and enjoyed the nice evening. I ran into a couple that used to go to Davidson UMC, where my dad was the pastor for 12 years--I'm pretty sure the wife was the one who worked as a crossing guard at the (best) elementary school (ever) and took me home the day my dad forgot to pick me up from kindergarten. Way cool. I managed to pick my way down a dirt and gravel trail to a little fishing pier overlooking the lake, and I'll leave you with the view as captured by my dinky little camera phone (though you have to admit, it's not a half-bad picture):