November 11th 2007 – In and Out of Attending Sunday Services

Missing Sunday Service never used to bother me much. Often it seemed I hadn’t “missed” much in terms of what happened. When no one commented on my absence it seemed like no one cared if I was there. If someone did comment I felt under scrutiny and pressured to attend. Now each time I am on call at work (at my company on call means all night during the week and ready to work on calls all weekend from Friday evening to Monday morning) there is a good chance I will be working rather than worshipping.

I was surprised how out of the loop I felt missing last Sunday’s worship. All Saint’s Day was special and I would have loved to see the youth leading worship. I do see the posted sermons and plays under Ministry on the website but it is certainly not the same as attending.

This Sunday I appreciated the worship. Pastor Dayle preached a good sermon about Job and our identity as a hopeful people waiting for God to make old things new, for resurrection.

The attendance was low at both services. Many of the congregation were at the OLYO Gathering in Seaside (together with Pastor Mark). Worship was a bit more subdued as a result but the music really seemed to hit a stride during the second service.

In Adult Education Pastor Dayle spent the first part of the hour introducing some concepts she picked up in the diversity training she attended at a retreat center up in Washington. I didn't hear any new concepts but it will probably be good for a review of how to conduct sessions where we want to hear from everyone.

We broke into small groups and discussed the First Lesson Job reading. It was an interesting discussion in our small group. We talked about questions that we were given and moved into other topics as well. It is hard to know when to "follow the rules of the discussion" as opposed to knowing what they are trying to inspire and acknowledging when that kind of talk is happening.