Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.
It’s among the most useful word processing tools and a life maneuver to save time and effort: cut and paste.
But it doesn’t always work.
Here’s a sports application: it appeared to everyone watching that my beloved Denver Broncos prepared for their Super Bowl matchup with the Seattle Seahawks yesterday in a sort of cut and paste fashion. Simply cut what worked for their season’s 15 previous wins and paste it onto this immense page. If the Seahawks were editors, there’s deep red ink all over the page. What worked there and then can’t necessarily be trusted here and now.
Now here’s church application: yesterday’s communion liturgy was, as it often is, cut and pasted from a previous worship service, so I didn’t look it over before the service. I didn’t notice that I’d cut it from an Advent worship service. Not until I was reading it aloud to the congregation did the paste get messy, because there were some references to the baby Jesus being born and Mary’s song of hope and defiance. Cut and paste be cursed.
So what do you do? Forswear the tactic? Hardly. It’s too useful too often to be scared off it by a couple of bad applications.
Be more careful. Of course. This is a blog, though, not a user’s manual; “be more careful” is boring nanny talk.
How about this: seize the chance to adjust on the fly and to improvise.
Yesterday’s communion liturgy was unlike any I’ve been part of before because my colleague and I had to replace entire phrases in real time. Our appropriation of communion–what it is and what it’s good for–came through as we were left, in the heat of the moment, to extemporize Eucharist. And you know what? Christ was still present.
It’s a parable for the modern day church. Cutting and pasting practices from an earlier era into this one won’t always work, but that doesn’t mean we face an insurmountable creative task. We still cut and paste, because we’re working with gold. But there’s an invitation here to make it fit in new ways. And where it doesn’t fit there’s an invitation to adapt–not discard–to flex, and to trust that God is working in the jumbled mess that results.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.
Someone said preparation is not the same thing as planning.
I planned a discussion with confirmation students about the position of Christianity in American culture. I printed copies of the chart from this report, but I wasn’t prepared for a student’s objection to the lumping together of “Jewish,” “Muslim,” “Hindu,” and “Buddhist” under a category called “Other.” I offered a sterile defense of research methodology and missed a moment of righteous indignation.
The Youth Intern proudly announced to the junior high students that he had knocked out a foreboding piece of his wedding planning by securing the venue 21 months in advance. He reported the date. I checked my calender. “Oh, that’s a Sunday.” His face fell. He wasn’t prepared for 7th graders to cackle as him, nor from his enraged fiancee’s condemnation: “You had one job!!”
After a Saturday cooking class and the purchase of a new cookbook, I planned my family’s weekly meals on paper. I took daughter shopping with me after church, then returned home to spend the next two hours chopping produce, making stock to freeze, and cooking rice for use throughout the week. But I wasn’t prepared for Daughter’s indifference as she turned up her nose at what I was making. Cookbook, meet trash can.
We’re planning three high school youth group sessions on romance, dating, and relationships. I enlisted students’ help in planning specific topics. Giggles. Silence. Jokes. I’m no more prepared now than I was before.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.
Today’s topic: Veggie Tales.
My church has never had a dedicated high school gathering on Sunday morning before worship. What it does have is a dynamic married couple who, for close to 40 years, have taught a combined junior high and high school class in the hour before worship. It’s honestly one of the best things about my church.
Last year we decided to fully include new 6th graders into all of our youth activities, rather than make them wait until the 7th grade, which is when middle school starts in the public schools. As a result, a small contingent of the high school students in that Sunday morning class began showing signs of frustration with the, shall we say, less advanced maturity of their younger peers. I reached out to these students and asked if they would like to have their own gathering on Sunday morning–high schoolers only. They said yes they would, so I recruited a few teachers and sent them off.
This morning I think that send off officially sank. After a promising start last fall, it struggled in the winter and spring with too little support for the teachers. By the time we regrouped for the current school year, many students didn’t come back, and most of the new high schoolers didn’t want to leave the junior high class with the married couple. The teachers I’d recruited were frustrated, and with good reason.
I tried one last thing: a high school Bible study in my office with the three or four high schoolers who were interested. Today was week three of that. Week one had two students, week two only one, and today, well, none.
Several high school students actually showed up for Sunday school. And when I saw them I simply told them where I would be at the start of the hour, and that they were welcome to come join me but that I wouldn’t coerce them. Well, to a person they chose to join the junior high class. I found out later why: Veggie Tales.
Initially I’m miffed about this. That my high school students can’t resist the allure of animated Bible stories meant for young children makes me think I’ve failed in some bigger way. Either the Bible study I’m proposing is hopelessly boring, or the work I’ve done with these students since they were sixth graders has not increased their Biblical literacy or spiritual maturity one bit.
But I suspect there’s something else going on here, something I don’t want to fight, and so I’m gladly conceding defeat. The married couple are amazing, amazing people, and that any of our students of any age get to sit at their feet is a gift I’ll not block. Further, they like having high schoolers and junior high schoolers together, even when that involves a six year stretch of grade levels. They’re the experts, and I should get out of the way.
I’m adding this whole episode to my career’s growing chronicle of things that were working just fine and had worked fine for years before I arrived but that I somehow thought I could improve and so inserted myself only to threaten or wreck a good thing.
I’m also adding it to the long list of reasons I believe Veggie Tales are from the devil.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a recurring post that examines personal and pastoral events of Sunday.
Today’s topic: improvisation.
One of the valuable contributions being made by NEXT Church is a push towards spontaneity and improvisation in worship. Mainline churches have relied heavily on printed orders of worship that clearly instruct worshipers in every move of a service, especially since the liturgical renewal movement of the 1960’s. That serves a critical hospitality function, as anyone who can read is able to follow printed prompts and join in printed responses.
But voices like Ashley Goff are pushing churches to drop the scripts and pick up some improv skills. To sit for 60 minutes listening passively or joining in now and again in precisely predetermined ways feels more and more out of joint for contemporary people. How, the question goes, can churches expect to incorporate the gifts of men and women who, Monday through Saturday, are blogging and DIYing their way through more and more of life when what we offer them is an hour long seminar or hymn sing?
It’s a complicated question, and there’s lots of nuance to be added, but I’m persuaded that the move to improv and spontaneity is the right one. So yesterday I tried some things. I asked for a raising of hands during the sermon. I tried the “Yes, Let’s” benediction again. But that’s not much. I still felt like I was doing a lot of one-way talking.
So here’s my question: if you’re a church leader, what are some of your favorite ways of “imrov”ing in worship? If you go to a church, what kind of balance do you expect between what the service dictates for you vs. what you’re invited to contribute of your own? And if church isn’t your thing, then what is the most invigorating kind of collective activity you participate in, and what makes it that way?
I don’t know how my most popular blog posts relate to my best ones. That’s for others to say. My most viewed posts in 2013 were “This Hurts” and “As Though We Are Being Saved.” Both of those posts were about ECO and the continuing decline of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a fact that suggests that, if yorocko.com has anything of value to offer, it’s personal commentary on those two issues. I hope that’s true. Also, those posts came out of the worst stretch of days I experienced all year (frankly, they felt a little whiney). I’m not sure what to make of their popularity.
As for the best, I’m comfortable saying that the best thing that happened in this space last year was Monday Morning Quarterback. It didn’t get done every week, but when it did it generated fun conversations and got read by people I wouldn’t have predicted. It started as an experiment in January and continued (off and on) through December. I’m happy about that.
Some things that didn’t work out this year. There was an experiment to write a post each week featuring new music releases that never generated any interest. I realized after about a month that I don’t particularly like reading about music; why should anyone else?
Also, my ambition to blog through several books in 2013 didn’t get past Mihee Kim Kort’s “Making Paper Cranes.” I guess I lack the discipline to stick to regular posts on the same book. I’m not giving up, though, because my experience blogging this book and this book were so much fun. Maybe I’ll capture something in 2014.
As for the next 12 months, I’m not sure what’s in store. Maybe I’ll focus more on writing about the PC(USA) and ECO. Maybe Monday Morning Quarterback has run its course. Maybe “yorocko” is too adolescent a title.
I value the conversation and thank you whole-heartedly for reading and sharing. Happy New Year!
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
6:49. Shouts of “Stop it!” from upstairs. The kitten is awake and terrorizing Daughter.
7:16. Taking the time, on this busiest of days during this most hectic of weeks, to remember to spirit of the season by reading Rany’s latest blog post about the Royals recent off season moves.
7:49. Daughter singing to Wife: “Wake u-up/Wake u-up/I want to see your eyeballs.”
8:20. In the office with my scarf still on ’cause it’s cold. Head of Staff spies the scarf and calls me “Dickensian.” What? Oh, I thought you said . . .
8:31. Glancing at the schedule for the week and realizing a MAJOR conflict. Duuuuuuude!
8:33. Head of Staff has prepared slips of paper with angel quotes on them for people to take during worship this morning and reflect on throughout the week. She’s eager to show me the one from Acts 12 that says, “Get up quickly. Fasten your belt and put on your sandals. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” Whoever gets that one is going to have some figuring out to do.
8:51. Walk past Deacon and his young son moving presents into the sanctuary for the morning’s Adopt-A-Family dedication. Joke with the boy with hands outstretched, “Oh you shouldn’t have.” Boy’s father retorts, “No, you haven’t been good enough this year.” Nervous chuckle. What does he know?
8:53. Urging Children’s Director to warn the morning’s Children’s Time leader to keep it short. Last time he spoke in worship a Pastor had to cut him off: “I love you, but you gotta stop.”
9:29. Using this clip to make the case for George Bailey as Joseph. Nodody buying it.
10:08. Sanctuary is full of red sweaters and little kids with garland halos. Pageant day!
10:17. Children’s Time guy commits cardinal Children’s Time sin by opening with Q&A. Noooo!
10:22. After a touching and succinct story, Children’s Time ends with Advent candle lighting. It’s still and lovely.
10:29. Pageant time! Director waking he arms and gritting her teeth to get 9 tiny angels to move.
10:30. Pageant is called “Calling All Angels.” Train? What are the odds?!
10:31. “We are!/Singing Angels!/Angels!” Yes. Yes you are.
10:38. There’s one angel not singing but sticking out her tongue. Daughter!
10:43. Angels bowing and losing their halos.
10:48. Worshipers coming forward to get their angel quotes. Daughter selects one for the family. “Get up quickly. Fasten your belt and put on your sandals. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” Oh man.
11:19. On the patio after worship. Church member telling me she read Landon’s and my music posts last week. “How cute!” she says. Cute? Cute?!
11:39. Somebody brought blonde brownies with coconut and chocolate chips. Eat three of them in as many seconds.
12:11. Playdate. Warning Daughter and Playmate as we walk in the front door: “Do not open this door. The cat will get out. Do you understand? Do not open this door.” Yes. Yes, we understand.
12:14. Door opened. Cat out.
12:23. Making up some Mac N’ Cheese, ’cause it’s what the girls asked for and I aim only to please.
12:47. Girls turning up their noses and the Mac N’ Cheese. The cheese is white.
1:16. Check Facebook to find that no fewer than three people have already posted pictures of the morning’s pageant. Consider how odd that would seem to someone even five years ago.
1:49. Daughter and Playmate fighting outside. Neighbors intervening. Uh oh.
2:18. Neighbor’s box of Speculoos cookies rapidly disappearing as the girls fill their cheeks.
2:39. Cat escapes for a third time.
3:35. 26 people have arrived for our annual caroling outing. Lots of kids, including Daughter, Playmate, and Playmate’s playmate. I predict triangulation drama.
4:05. During “Hark The Herald” in the retirement home, Daughter uses plastic candy cane as a prop to imitate an old person. Want to get away.
4:28. Carrying Daughter. How predictable was this?
7:08. Students arriving for high school youth group. I got no plan here.
7:19. Explaining a white elephant gift exchange to German exchange student. His smile broadens as the description progresses.
7:41. Game of Things prompt, “Things that make you giggle.” Scribble “Nipples,” then decide against it.
7:42. “Things that make you giggle” answers include among them “goat nipples.” Of course! Adding an animal in front of it makes it totally appropriate. Students rolling on the floor.
7:51. Trying to get a 9th grader to stop saying, “Damn it!”
8:45. Asserting my religious authority: “Okay, one more game, but we’re praying before we leave!”
9:01. Students scatter without praying. #pastorfail #anymonkeycoulddothis
9:12. Dropping student off at home, suggesting to him an inverse relationship between the number of a person’s dating partners and that person’s self-confidence.
9:33. Home. Consider typing up Monday Morning Quarterback. Decide to go to bed instead.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
6:13. Wake up. Alarm is set permissively for 7:00, since sermon wasn’t done til 2:00 am. Drifting back to sleeeeeee . . . .
6:43. Eyes open again. Forget it. I’m up.
7:14. Foregoing further sermon edits at home in favor of getting to the church, where I’ll edit from the pulpit in an empty sanctuary.
7:49. Quick-and-dirty design of a “thank you” postcard for the youth bake sale after church. On to sermon.
7:50. Children’s Director: “There’s a dead cat in the street outside. Can you come with me to see if it’s still breathing?” Me: “Sure. I love dead cats. Wait. Are you serious?”
7:52. Spot the felled feline from about 100 yards. That thing is dead, dead, dead.
7:53. Suggest to the Children’s Director that we should call animal control. Start back to the office. Stop. She asked me to come with her; I should be less of a jerkface and actually do what she asked. Kitty death march resumes.
7:55. Moment of silence. Children’s Director getting emotional. I’m still thinking of my sermon edit. What’s wrong with me?
8:12. Problem: printing quick-and-dirty postcard on cardstock. Not so quick: printer jam.
8:13. Jam extricated. Printing again. Jammed again.
8:16. After four jams, give up on the postcard in favor of getting a manuscript draft printed. Will edit by hand.
8:17. Printing sermon manuscript. Jammed again.
8:19. Head of Staff walks in to find my arm swallowed by the printer. “Um, good morning?”
8:31. Printer fight rages on. Children’s Director and Head of Staff have tagged in. Children’s Director wrapping scotch tape around the blunt end of a large plastic candy cane to try and retrieve rogue paper scrap.
8:35. Paper retrieved. Surprise! It’s not from my manuscript. It’s a shard from a mailing label last seen in 1868.
8:36. Printer still says it’s jammed. Rebooting. Stalking to office to edit on the laptop.
8:43. Manuscript finally emerges from the printer. Half of it is on the green cardstock meant for the postacard. I’ll redo it later.
8:45. Checking up on adult education class leader. She needs a DVD player. Facilities guy can’t find it. Only other option: my laptop. So much for redoing the manuscript.
8:56. Laptop threatening to install software updates while I’m fighting with to play the DVD.
9:11. Slip away from adult education class after facilitating one DVD clip. Pretty sure the laptop will restart while I’m gone.
9:19. Drop green sermon manuscript in the pulpit. The color is the most interesting thing about it.
9:28. Arranging items for youth bake sale.
9:39. Return to adult education classroom. Computer indeed restarted. Spend six minutes trying to play the second clip.
9:52. Recruiting jr. high student to acolyte and turn on graphic for sermon.
9:55. Text from high school student I recruited to lead the Children’t Time: “On my way.” Checking watch. Oh man.
10:06. Acolyte calling the congregation to worship with a full voiced “Hear the good news!” That’s what I’m talking about!
10:07. Spy my high school student during the opening hymn. Acknowledging his presence (dude rode his bike. Uphill)
10:11. Daughter belly crawling beneath the front pew. The acolyte next to me is amused.
10:18. High school student killing the Children’s Time. Beaming. I know that guy!
10:19. High school student: “My mom is a strong woman, just like I’m trying to be.” Relishing the thought of ribbing him about that later, then deciding not to.
10:21. Daughter and her playmate “sneaking” off the chancel, scooting their bottoms a foot at a time til they get to the steps. High school student unfazed.
2:23. Escaping #somlive to fold laundry. Best bad option.
3:48. Wife suggest some “Punkin’ Chunkin'” to get rid of rotting pumpkin decorations. Daughter hurling produce from atop a stepladder onto the sidewalk? What could go wrong?
5:28. Jr. high students playing “the box game,” led by adult volunteer. Students roll a dice in turn. When it lands on six, you put on a pair of gloves and try to open a wrapped present before the next person rolls a six. Easy enough.
5:29. Oh. The gloves. I get it now . . .
5:30. Student curses and hurls present across the room.
5:32. Finally roll a six.
5:34. Roll my second six. Get into that package like a beast. Win. Win. Win.
7:20. Explaining summer work trip to high school students. They’re hung up on the charter bus piece. Specifically, they’re worried about the bathroom situation on a charter bus. In the desert. In July.
7:57. Dusting off my copy of Soul Pancake for this discussion prompt: Why do we hate? Students responses are thoughtful, which is not surprising.
8:34. Volunteer proposes playing the game he just bought. Funny or Die. First thing I see is card that reads, “I’m not naturally this flexible.” This could be trouble. Ask volunteer if game is PG-13. He smirks and doesn’t answer.
8:43. Students crying with laughter at game. Dropping resistance.
9:21. Home to find tree lit. Ahhhh.
9:28. Putting Daughter’s uniform in the washer for tomorrow morning.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
5:53. Awake from a dream that I was in prison and was going to stand up my mother, visiting from out of town.
6:00. Awake to the alarm.
6:02. Turning on the oven to bake the cornbread stuffing that’s been chilling in the fridge overnight. There’s a Thanksgiving-style meal after church today, and my stuffing will be the talk of the event.
6:43. Enjoying my coffee while reading this article. Painfully recalling high school.
7:12. Removing daughter’s crock pot concoction to a pie dish: lentils, potatoes, broccoli, and carrots, all congealed into an orange mash.
7:15. Daughter tastes her dish. “I don’t like it, but I want to take it to the pot luck, because other people might like it.” How can you say no to that?
7:58. Ready to walk out the door, two casserole dishes of stuffing in one hand and daughter’s mash in the other, and daughter begins to plead, “Can I come to church early with you? Pleeeeeeease?”
8:10. Daughter and stuffing in the car. Daughter is drinking prune juice, ’cause, you know . . .
8:18. Children’s Director tastes daughter’s dish and issues a gleefully muffled, “Itsh derishioush.” Grimacing.
8:23. Typing agenda for post-worship Adult Education Committee meeting. Who calls a meeting concurrent with a church meal? I do.
8:47. Printing the Junior High Youth Group lesson for this afternoon. Daughter conscientiously retrieving papers from the printer in the next room. She demands I stay put and allow her to bring them to me. Empowerment or secretary training?
8:56. Chatting with a friend who’s giving the charge at another friend’s installation later today. My advice: incorporate the word “awesome.”
9:35. I’ve got an honest-to-goodness high school Bible study going in my office. Three students and me. And Philippians.
10:00. Acolytes today are old pros. I ask if they can light the candles themselves and they roll their eyes.
10:11. Call to Confession. Daughter is in the front row. Her playmate is rebelliously climbing under the pew. Daughter is fighting the temptation to follow her by smacking herself on the head.
10:12. Silent Prayer of Confession. Daughter whispering, “Daddy. Daaaddy.” I should be irritated, but I love this.
10:16. Time with The Children. Daughter clutching my arm, then mimicking my every movement. At least she’s not picking her nose.
10:17. Explaining to children that God wants all of us and realizing how menacing (and hopelessly abstract) that sounds.
10:21. Reading Psalm 100. “He” and “His” are all over this thing. Trying hard to emphasize all the words right after each masculine pronoun: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving/and his courts with praise/Give thanks to him, bless his name.”
11:14. Looking for daughter. Church is out, her mom’s not here, and I’m running all over.
11:16. Find daughter, crying because she doesn’t know where I am. Father of The Year over here.
11:38. Planning Adult Education programming for January and February. Anyone up for a sensitive conversation about race?
12:09. Finally joining the potluck. Happy to see there’s some stuffing left.
12:11. Plate is full, but there’s a disturbance. There’s a kid in here whom none of us know. He’s crying. He asks to use someone’s phone to call his mom. Won’t tell us who his dad is.
12:17. Crying kid taken care of. Enjoying stuffing.
12:22. Second crying kid.
12:34. Seconds on the stuffing.
1:22. Home cleaning casserole and crock pot dishes.
2:39. Daughter: “Where’s my beer bottle?” What the?!
3:23. Playing Hide-And-Seek with daughter for a bit before I have to leave for youth groups. It’s the least I can do.
4:34. Junior high boys arrive and immediately begin assaulting each other with pool noodles left on the floor. Completely ignore my stern directives to S-T-O-P!
4:48. Shooting a quick video with students for next week’s premier of our Advent worship series on Christmas movies. Today’s challenge: film an illustration for the sermon featuring the line, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”
5:08. Struggling mightily to teach “Up Jenkins” to junior high students. Mostly, they’re just yelling at each other.
5:24. Finally get students calm enough to do a Bible talk.
6:06. Debriefing junior high youth group with volunteer staff. Deciding the challenge is growing the maturity of some and the immaturity tolerance of others.
7:12. Filming the high school version of the “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” video.
7:48. Check in tonight involves summarizing Bible stories with a Facebook status update. My favorite: “That moment when you realize your kids are hiding from you in the garden” (my entry–“That moment when you turn to see the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and get turned into a pillar of sa–” does not fare well).
8:12. Watching a clip from Despicable Me and concluding that Gru is Jesus and we are Jesus’ Minions.
8:54. Quick game of Camoflogue in the sanctuary. 9th grader’s never played before and messes up. Leaves angrily. #pastorfail.
9:36. Home and making a list of all the things I need to get done tomorrow. On my vacation.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
6:00. Awake. On the couch. For the fifth straight morning. Mom and In-Laws are in town for Daughter’s big theatrical debut and I’m rockin’ this couch like I’m in college.
6:43. Throwing together junior high youth group lesson on “friendship”: 1 measure of Proverbs+1 measure of Ruth & Naomi+2 measures of games=mediocre youth ministry.
8:21. Head of Staff arrives at church to say she’s not feeling well. Start preparing a sermon in my mind. On the Apocalypse.
8:47. Head of Staff discussing the morning with Children’s Director and I. She stops mid-sentence and swallows hard. Children’s Director and I both take one step back, to protect our shoes.
8:52. Text from wife: “Daughter still sleeping. Not coming to Sunday School.”
9:01. Adult Education leader arrives with her delightful daughter.
9:05. We have one Adult Education participant.
9:08. We have three Adult Education participants. Realize that my family’s absence has cut the attendance by more than half.
9:34. Adult Education leader throws a stack of papers all over the floor. On purpose. Why don’t I ever do cool stuff like that?
9:54. Grab unsuspecting 2nd grader to be the morning’s acolyte.
9:57. Head of Staff: “Your wife is looking for you.” Uh oh.
9:59. Wife: “Your mom is sick. She’s not coming to church.”
10:08. Acolyte struuuuuugling with the middle candle. The wick’s got bent back, and there’s no fixing it. I got this.
10:18. Daughter straight up picking her nose during the Children’s Time. Reflexively cover her face with my worship bulletin.
10:19. Children’s Time = demonstrating the superiority of singing by reciting “Hallelujah” vs. singing “Hallelujah.” Years of training, people.
10:20. Realize that I’m singing “Hallelujah” right into my lapel mic. There goes my “hidden” talent.
10:29. Head of Staff choking her way through the sermon. On standby, ready to be on vomit duty. Then begin to wonder: is she sick or emotional?
10:38. Sermon over. Whew! I work with a warrior.
11:18. Looking for Daughter in the tangled mass of patio fellowship. Find her in the Fellowship Hall directing her playmate in a number from yesterday’s play. Playmate’s a good sport, but I feel Daughter’s clipboard hurtling and swearing is a step too far.
11:29. Daughter informed it’s time to go. Wailing and gnashing of teeth.
11:44. Stop by hotel to check on sick mom. She’s dizzy and lightheaded. Decide to run to urgent care.
12:28. Urgent care waiting room is a cesspool of sick. It’s The Walking Dead in here.
1:12. Urgent care verdict: nothing irregular. Sinus congestion only.
2:04. Arrive back home just in time to enjoy a beautiful lunch laid out by wife and In-Laws: salad and cheese and bread. Relaxing a bit . . .
2:08. Music for lunch is the cat howling from it’s bathroom penitentiary.
3:07. Daughter attacks Wife with sword and shield. Wife: “No fair! I’m unarmed!”
3:08. Daughter bounds down the stairs with a second sword and shield. En guard!
3:15. It’s my turn to sword fight Daughter. Let me work in some Monty Python jokes. She’ll love those.
3:16. “None shall pass.” Daughter=stone-faced.
3:17. “‘Tis but a flesh wound!” Daughter=sticking out her tongue.
3:18. “I’ll bit your legs off!” Daughter=”Daddy, are you serious?”
4:04. Off to junior high youth group.
5:03. Youth group exercise: students share what a friend would have to do to lose their friendship. One student says, “Make me angry.”
5:12. Another youth group exercise: students create a job description to be their friend, including Qualifications and Duties. 6th grader chuckles at “Duties.”
5:15. Leading Qualifications: “cool,” “popular,” and “has money.” Oh. My. God.
6:09. Quick stop back home to pick up In-Laws and take them with me to an event I’m partially responsible for, a talk by this guy at the local Jewish temple that we’re co-sponsoring.
6:15. Leaving for event, and it’s the last Daughter will see of Grandma before the latter flies home in the morning. Daughter refusing to hug Grandma. I’m fuming.
6:52. Meeting the speaker. Resist the urge to say, “Nice to finally meet the guy who’s been calling me weekly since June.”
7:38. Audience member interrupts speaker to challenge him on a minute detail of his talk. People squirming.
8:48. Enjoying the always-excellent baked goods provided by the Temple. They put Presbyterians to shame here.
9:07. Back home. Daughter wants a snack. Sigh.
9:34. Discussing the ills of the world with In-Laws over a late microwaved dinner.
10:02. Looking for replay of Broncos’ game. It’s not up yet. Cursing professional sports and media.
10:03. Collapse on the couch. The Broncos will wait until morning.
Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
Here’s to waking up at 6:00 on Sunday in a sleeping bag.
Here’s to Via, sure to give me a headache but just as sure to beat camp coffee.
Here’s to the 10th grader who forgot to bring a hairbrush and to his Pastor’s retort: “God gave you two hairbrushes–one at the end of each arm.”
Here’s to the scowl.
Here’s to bacon and eggs, the food of the mountain gods.
Here’s to Reece and his ever-increasing band of singers, drummers, and guitar strummers. Here’s to “debt” and “blood” and “price” and “He” and “His” and all the other non-inclusive, substitutionary atonement-derived lyrics that populate retreat worship. Here’s to “You are the church” and Reece enlisting the prayers of 50 teenagers for a family friend.
Here’s to Jason. Here’s to the mustache. Here’s to the mustache comb. Here’s to the Kingdom of God illustrated with some clip art that Jason doesn’t notice includes “the millenium.”
Here’s to Capture The Flag.
Here’s to Millason: planner of workshops, tweeker of the schedule, quoter of Buechner, teacher of worship, coach. Here’s to getting off the escalator.
Here’s to stuffing, Thanksgiving come early.
Here’s to Paul. Here’s to Paul. Here’s to Paul. Here’s to checking the score of the Broncos’ game during my talk on The Cross. Here’s to owning it. Here’s to his prayer stations. Here’s to salt in your lemonade.
Here’s to Erin. Perennial good sport, ever proud of her students, designer of crosses, and fearless denizen of denim.
Here’s to worship led by students. Here’s to a 6th grader soldiering through a 15 verse scripture reading in just under 10 minutes. Here’s to The Lord’s Supper in Dixie cups, students praying for their peers, a student teaching The Lord’s Prayer “Like we do it in my church.” Here’s to an impromptu poetry reading from a student who never talks. Ever.
Here’s to Erik. Here’s to Gorgon. Here’s to Grog. Here’s to taking the scaring of youth to a whole new level, reducing them to cowering screams in the water heater closet. Here’s to Soccer-in-The-Dark and busted shins. Here’s to The Hunger Games and a pastor’s daughter calling out, “You hold her down and I’ll kill her!”
Here’s to dancing til midnight. Here’s to microwave popcorn.
Here’s to young people: their faith, their doubts, their lies, their unholy racket, their compassion, their yearning.
YoRocko! 
