This past Sunday was our church picnic in the park. This is our annual gathering in which we gather for our regular church service, but in a park. Then we stuff ourselves with the food people bring.

This was our first time being out in the park since returning to the building from the Pandemic. During the pandemic, we spent a few months outside, gathering in the park for worship.

In the park then, late 2020 and spring 2021, there was a kind of energy to the gathering. Energy that people still talked about a year later.

Most of that energy we chalked up to wanting to be with other people. But anybody who knows church life knows that doing church outside is just different. Especially for a liturgically formal church.

I can think back to the many times I’ve been a part of worship in parks, much like this one. It’s fair to say that I always want to like them.

Not just having to. Wanting to.

I never truly liked doing church in the park until that was all we had. And because it was all we had, I wanted to make the experience better.

Of course, we made it better with technology and planning. But that was only part of it. I put more of my own stamp on it. And I think they got better because of it.

This week felt much more like that than any of the previous ones.

When we’re inside, we have the formality. And the tradition. But more importantly, we have the burden of expectation. We have 150 years of continuous worship in this place. That’s a lot of times people have done it before us; more than 7500 Sundays.

It really has to be the same. It has to connect with that continuity.

Being outside, we don’t have that. We are more free to do what we need to do. To be moved.

What goes with that freedom is a responsibility to make it worth the difference.

Ultimately, without getting to rely on expectation to rein us in.

Whether any of this is worth it depends on what we’re willing to put in. Not just the leader. All of us. And not just because we have to, but because we want to.