This evening my wonderful wife and I will attend a Christmas Eve Lord's Supper service, one which I will not be leading. While I always enjoyed this service, and while the short, quiet, reverent time involved no preaching but rather almost all music and the service of the Lord's Supper, it involved a certain amount of stress.
'Sure,' the musicians would say, 'stress for us, not you.'
Maybe.
Still, I would spend the day thinking about the service, arriving early to make sure everything was in place.
Not tonight. We show up, together. We worship. We remember the Lord's sacrifice for us. We go home.
Stressless.
Tomorrow, we go to church. We worship. We go home.
Stressless.
I don't recall resenting leading services but I kinda like the concept of stresslessness this year.
Have a nice Christmas.
'Sure,' the musicians would say, 'stress for us, not you.'
Maybe.
Still, I would spend the day thinking about the service, arriving early to make sure everything was in place.
Not tonight. We show up, together. We worship. We remember the Lord's sacrifice for us. We go home.
Stressless.
Tomorrow, we go to church. We worship. We go home.
Stressless.
I don't recall resenting leading services but I kinda like the concept of stresslessness this year.
Have a nice Christmas.
6 comments:
You are going to have some pastors envious of your "stressless Christmas." As much as I love that we are having three Christmas Eve services tonight there is always some stress involved. Besides being in a drama tonight I am also one of the musicians.
I'm at church right now, making sure things are set up.
Tim
My relaxed celebration of Christmas begins around 11 (or 11:15) tomorrow when the service is over and I head home.
Until then, it is stressful.
But I think I would miss this. It would be a weird change anyway.
It is a weird change.
I sometimes tweak the pastor-bloggers who are always whining about the difficulty of being a pastor but this is one way that is distinctly different for lay and pastor.
William,
You are right.
It seems to me as a pastor, that a service at my church in which I am not preaching is as stressful, or more so, than one in which I am preaching.
I am, however, preaching today. I hope you will spend some time feeling sorry of me and all my stress this morning :-).
Enjoy a stress-free Christmas and Lord's Day. I will starting such at about 12:15 today.
David R. Brumbelow
That's "sorry for me." I hate typos. But I'm under a lot of stress.
David R. Brumbelow
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