I’m going to the store!

I tell her. We need milk for cereal in the morning. There isn’t enough in the fridge.

I grab the keys.

'There isn’t room in my brain for any of these other things.' Share on X

Do we need anything else?

We could use some bread.

She tells me.

and some flour. I’m going to make cookies tomorrow. I think we might be out of sugar, so–

I get out my phone.

OK, hold on.

My thumb opens my list app.

I type “sugar” then “bread” then…

What was the second one? I have sugar, bread…

Flour

she says.

Right! Flour…what was I going for? Milk! OK. What else?

Certainly the craziness of this moment could have been eliminated if I had started with the list. But I didn’t need to, because I was only going to the store for one thing: milk. I expected to only need to grab, say, one other thing. I don’t need a list when I have to worry about two things. I can remember them both. But three? One gets bumped. Usually the one in the middle.

As a priest, I use task lists all the time to keep me on target. I have far too many responsibilities to keep them in my brain and have them not get lost. I need to write things down and, more importantly, put them in the device I always have with me.

The bigger problem is keeping track of things on Sunday, in the worship service. The same Two Things Rule applies there.

And I am told that I can be a bit intense or serious at times, so if I smiled more, it would greatly help my communication. This is excellent help.

Another thing, which comes up constantly is sound. Every church person knows that sound can be a problem in a church building anyway. And then we get older and we put in hearing aids (or don’t!) and that really changes things. So I’m used to this one. It doesn’t help that we have a couple of dead zones in the transept of the room: places where sound prefers not to travel. I think it is too afraid. These, of course, are places people love to sit in.

Anyway, people remind me that I need to speak up and enunciate. And don’t turn my head so much to look at everybody. It is much easier to hear me when I speak only at them.

And at announcement time, it is worse because I move around, I am speaking off the cuff, and it is a more conversational time, not a scripted prayer time. My voice goes down here and the acoustics of the building change because I step into the No Projection Zone.

So now my list is this:

Remember to

• smile
• speak loudly
• enunciate more
• don’t turn my head
• don’t move around or move out to where people are

Of course, the unspoken suggestions make this more complicated.

Also remember to

• be serious and solemn
• speak with personal devotion
• and genuine enthusiasm
• speak to everybody
• be engaging

So now I have a weekly list of ten things in my head as I prepare for worship each week, also knowing that the first service at 8:00 gets the first crack at the sermon and remains remarkably quiet. Any jokes I make or silliness or emotive moves will be met without visual or auditory response. I have to not let it throw me. Keep going.

And then at 10:00 we may have a blessing or a baptism or look, newcomers, how should we invite them? and Deby isn’t here this week, should I announce Women Dining Out or the Homeless Coalition meeting?

You can see how much further past my Two Things Rule we’ve gone. But here’s the thing about leading worship. At least as far as I know about my leading worship. I can only think about 2 things at one time and they are both the worship itself.

1. I am thinking about the worship itself – the moment we are in. The words we are praying, the sound we are making, the tone we are setting, and the devotion we are expressing. I am aware of our work together and the place we are in the service.
2. I am thinking about what is coming up. Our liturgy has a pattern, which is predictable, yes, but it is also fluid and involves movement and pieces which change. I begin to notice when it is time for me to move to the pulpit, to the center, to the table. I am beginning to think about the invitation I’ll give to the table and the announcement we need to make.

There isn’t room in my brain for any of these other things. Like, at all. They are good suggestions, but they can’t be acted upon now and, in fact, require that I don’t think about them. Which means practice. I have to practice smiling while I preach. I have to practice speaking louder in this space, in specific places in this space because they aren’t designed with the same acoustics.

To practice these things also means that I don’t get to do something else. It is something in which time is carved out for it. It is an addition to my present work life. I can do this, and probably should. But it means I am making time from other stuff.

Most important, though is to remember that my first priority on Sunday is leading an engaging liturgy of devoted worship to and with a GOD we love. I am not ignoring your suggestions, forgetting who you are, or refusing to acknowledge my own weaknesses. I am trying my best to lead our best and that can’t be done when I try to include a third or fourth thing on my mental list.

So, by all means, tell me how we can make our worship better. But also give me time to bring it in, practice it, and see how it feels. Otherwise it is the rest of worship that will suffer.

 

[NOTE: you can totally tell when I do think of something during one of my solo parts in the liturgy: I’ll say the wrong words or lose track of where I’m at. Something like 90-95% of all mistakes during The Great Thanksgiving come when my mind has wandered or I’m thinking outside of the moment.]