Finding True North #3: T-Minus One Week

A week from tomorrow, I am driving to Indianapolis, IN from Durham, NC. (Must find audio books or figure out how to make my Kindle read to me through my car stereo.) A week from Sunday, I will be in worship at North UMC for the first time, and apparently I'll be serving as the liturgist! I originally thought I would get a Sunday to be in the congregation and feel things out, but there's logic to the change: I'm preaching on Pentecost, which is June 12, which is my 3rd Sunday at North. I had not done that math. Yikes. In any case, June 5 is Youth Sunday, so May 29 is my only opportunity to speak in front of the congregation before I, you know, exhort them or whatever. Double yikes.

After learning that, I did something I'd been working on since orientation but hadn't really felt pressed to get done: I ordered an alb (my favorite part of the Wikipedia definition of them term is the adjective "ample"). NUMC has graciously offered to buy me an alb, a wonderful gift, and so, behold the goofy alb model from CM Almy. I'd be interested to hear which of you (assuming people read this, woooo) are accustomed to seeing albs/robes in your churches, which of you aren't, and particularly what you think the impact of vestments is on conceptions of authority, leadership, etc. I may offer more thoughts later, though I'm going to hold off, partly because some of my reflections on leadership and dress has gender qualifications that I find super irritating but have to deal with, just not right now.