First Communion

One of the realities of large parish ministries is that there are not enough ordained people to do all the things that ordained people are "supposed" to do. One of the things that Prairie Star Ministries does is participate with other churches in the area to serve communion to the residents of one of the nursing homes in the area. We hold church services in the nursing home chapel every Wednesday, and clergy from the participating churches preside over the service. Mark, my supervisor, showed me the ropes a couple of weeks ago, but yesterday I was on my own. That meant I had to pick hymns that were available in the large-print hymn books, preach the sermon, and serve communion. It is the first time I have ever served communion without a clergy person present. It went fine, and I'm sure Jesus is fine with it, but it is my own feelings that somehow I've entered some kind of elite club. Peter writes in the Bible about how we Christians are all priests to one another, and that no one is set above another, so any clergy person will tell you that those who serve communion are no more holy than those who receive it, but it was my first time doing it, so I thought it was noteworthy. I will serve communion at Evangelical Lutheran in Heron Lake on the first Sunday in October, and that will be my first time serving in a church building without a clergy person present. The Southwest Minnesota Synod authorizes interns to do these kinds of things, so everything is on the level, but it will still feel noteworthy to do it for the first time, and so I am writing to let you know I'm growing as a leader of the church. I think that's a good thing.

Last night at confirmation we had a really great discussion around the fact that Saul was a scoundrel but God used him anyway, and everybody thinks David was such a great king, but he really had some big screw-ups, the largest being the Bathsheba incident, but God used him anyway. The discussion ended with noticing how God uses anybody, whoever God chooses, to do what God wants done, so God just might choose one of my confirmation students to do something great. You never know. Good discussion; the problem is that now I'm behind schedule. I was supposed to get as far as from Samuel, the last judge of Israel, to Solomon, the king that divided the kingdom. We only got as far as David. Oh well, better luck next week. Blogged by Don