Christians: How Involved Are You in Church?

[Lalaith]

Thank you all for your replies. I've been reading, thinking, and digesting.

First, I should say that I am not hogging all of the jobs on purpose. Honestly, we do not have enough people willing to work to do it all. (Yes, that's a sad indictment against the people of our church.) And, yes, I know that there are other people who could certainly do a lot of what I do. (Some of what I do would be considered skilled jobs, but some is not. And, certainly, there are other musicians out there, other graphic artists, and other video editors/multimedia people. They just aren't at our church!)

But, having said all of that, I am just feeling totally overwhelmed and, worse, I am starting to dread church. I'm thinking it shouldn't be that way!

I've already dropped a couple of things, but I've had more dropped in my lap because of our music minister leaving.

I'm starting to have fantasies about being an anonymous churchgoer in some church somewhere where I wouldn't have a single responsibility. <daydreams>

Ah well. I'm really hoping God has something great in store for us because we are really going through a very tough time right now.




Lali

[WampusCat]

It shouldn't be that way. Just because it needs doing doesn't mean you have to do it. Seriously!

[Primula Baggins]

Sometimes it's when a job really needs doing—when someone who's done it for a long time has had to let it go—that's when someone who really should be doing the job gets pulled in to do it. The sudden need breaks through the reluctance. "Okay, I've never done this kind of thing, but it needs doing, so I'll figure it out."

Sometimes those are the people who really blossom.

[Alatar]

The crucifer carries the cross at the head of a procession, such as into church.

Aha! Must be an Anglican/Catholic thing? I was brought up Presbyterian and we didn't have processions into church. (Needless to say, Quakers don't either!)

Which denominations do this. I wonder?

Catholics do this every Sunday. When I used to be a sacristan at the parish when I was a kid/teen I did it.

Well, in Catholic Ireland, its more of a ceremonial thing, depending on the church. Some churches do it at all masses, some only at "events" like Easter, Confirmations etc. In other words, its not as simple as "Catholics do this". Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.

Personally (and I'm speaking only for myself here), I think that belongs to an older Catholicism, a throwback to the ceremony and style of the Latin mass. It doesn't really fit the "religion as community" that is present day Catholicism. Its fine on special occasions, but its not an everyday thing.

[Erunáme]

Honestly, we do not have enough people willing to work to do it all. (Yes, that's a sad indictment against the people of our church.) And, yes, I know that there are other people who could certainly do a lot of what I do.

Have you ever considered that those people are inadvertently taking advantage of you? I'm sure they don't mean harm, but why put forth effort when they know good Lali will come through?

[WampusCat]

From what I've observed at several churches, there is always a core of people who do the vast majority of the work. When one person pulls back because of burnout or circumstances or whatever, guess what? Someone else steps up. Or else things don't continue to be done exactly as they used to be done ... which is not necessarily a bad thing either.

[Crucifer]

In my experience, every Anglican church has a processional cross. How ofter it's used, if at all, varies greatly. Cathedrals would almost always have a Crucifer,and always if there is a choir present. Smaller churches might only use them on special occassions, or not at all, or when there happens to be a visiting choir or something like that.

Lali, you should meet my mum. She got made churchwarden last Easter, and now, if anything at all needs doing or clarifying, she's expected to have an answer, for some reason. Even if it's nothing to do with her duties as churchwarden. She also dreams of the day when she can wander into any church she feels like going to on a Sunday, and not have toworry about how many people in the congregation, tourists trying to sneak in and take pictures during services, and the caretaker ringing her on Saturday afternoon because the Cathedral shop has some problem,usually the same one each week.

She tires of telling people that she's not the administrator. So while she's in a different ministry to yours, I have some idea of your feelings on this matter.

[tinwë]

My four years as president of the board of directors of the homeowner’s association at my old townhouse complex taught me this lesson well. When I started there was a full board of nine active members. After four years that number had dwindled to four members, only two of whom were even remotely active (my self and one other), and I was doing all of the work myself. At the last annual homeowners meeting I attended I was the only board member who attended. Everyone figured “tinwë’s going to take care of everything, so we don’t need to bother”. It took me quitting the board altogether to get anyone to pay attention to what was going on. And it was the best thing I could have done, not just for myself but for the board too. It shocked people into getting involved again. Sad that that’s what it took, but it was.

As for church involvement, I’m not one to talk, since I don’t go at all myself, but coming from a family full of preachers I have seen a lot in my days. You can tell a lot about a church by looking at who gives the money. A church that relies on a few wealthy donors to fund it’s budget is almost never as strong as one where everybody gives what they can, even if the latter results in less money. And in churches that have the wealthy donors it is not uncommon for the rest of the people to figure they don’t need to give since the rich people are taking care of everything.

My guess is that the same holds true for the sorts of things you are doing Lali. People feel that there is no need for them to do any of those things since you are doing them all yourself, and that is not necessarily what is best for you or your church. It would be better if more people were involved. It may not work out that way, of course. Some things simply might not get done if you quit doing them, but as long as you are doing them other people will think they don’t need to get involved.

Perhaps that’s how you should look at this. By giving up some of your responsibilities you are giving other people an opportunity to become more involved in their own church.

[Lalaith]

You know, I certainly understand that; the main problem, at the moment, is that our church is sort of barely hanging on. Our pastor left in March; our music minister left in June. We have a minister of education (part-time), and that is all. Our pastor left to start a new church, about 2 minutes down the road.

So you can imagine that we've lost some people to his new church; we've lost other people to general desertion since we don't have a pastor. And we've lost some people due to being unhappy with how things are being "governed" in the interim till we get a new pastor.

The church is just on very shaky ground. I would give up things, if I could even begin to think of appropriate things to give up.

I'm on the pastor search committee. I'm part of the music ministry, which now includes choosing the songs for each week, deciding the order of songs, getting the info to the people who put the lyrics and related slides on the big screens, and just sort of making sure that all happens each week. (Those of you who do this sort of thing know there are about a hundred little things that go into this.)

The problem really arose when my best friends moved (the music minister and his family). Because I had worked with him so closely, I am one of the few people who really knew all that went into making worship service happen. Some of those responsibilities have fallen to me, some have been spread out. I'm certainly not doing it all. But just adding that to the stuff that I really enjoy doing, like the multimedia stuff, and it can get overwhelming. (I haven't much opportunity to do anything cool media wise, though, since Brian left.)

Band and choir are not that bad; my responsibilities there are few, though I have this overwhelming sense of ultimate responsibility to ensure things continue on as much like they were as possible.

I have dumped the majority of the youth stuff on Freddy, which makes me feel guilty, since we are supposed to be working together.

And then we decided we had to start a contemporary worship service or go insane. That huge thing is a pretty big burden in and of itself, but the impetus behind it is that if something doesn't change we will go loony.

Having gone to youth camp and having seen the youth and those of adults who went really break free and openly worship God, we are desperate for that here. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to go to the church down the road!

But we keep on keeping on here, because we don't feel a release from God to leave. Not yet, anyway.

Thanks for listening. I guess I mostly just needed to vent.

One thing I think most of you will understand: you do things sometimes to be an example to your children. Life is about having to do things you don't really want to do. Of course, life should also be about doing things you love as often as possible and prudent.

I'm just not sure where to draw the line to say that I'm being a positive example to the girls and where I'm not. (Some of this ties into the friendship woes I've talked about on b77. Realizing that I was picking difficult people to be friends with (some toxic), I decided to be much more deliberate in the future and cognizant of that fact because I don't want my daughters to follow in my footsteps in this regard. The ironic part was that I used to think I was being a good example, by being the type of friend who stuck by someone no matter what.)

Ugh.

I think what you are reading here is the rambling thoughts of an introvert who has completely expended her extroverted energies and is in desperate need of serious alone time to refuel.


Lali

[Primula Baggins]

Maybe you should claim some time for that, Lali?

If you were sick, or physically exhausted, nobody would begrudge you the chance to stay home for a few days and recoup. And anybody who knows introverts would agree that the mental exhaustion of relentless giving with no recharging time is as bad as any physical exhaustion or illness. In fact, it often leads to it: it can damage your immune system and make it easier to get sick; stress can cause sleeplessness; lack of focus slows you down and makes overwork worse.

I know you want to get the jobs done, but would a few days away from them help you regain some of the ground you've lost? Before the next flu bug comes by and knocks you flat for a week or ten days?

[JewelSong]

I have this overwhelming sense of ultimate responsibility to ensure things continue on as much like they were as possible

This may be the crux of the matter right here.

Look at the changes you listed. How on earth can things "continue on like they were?" They can't. Things have changed. Perhaps it is time to re-think the structure of...well, of everything.

When I got divorced, I realized that we were never again going to have the kind of "family Christmasses" I did when I was a kid and as I envisioned I would when I had my own family. So...I deliberately changed our "traditions." Trying to keep things "the way they were" would have been painful and ultimately counter-productive.

Sounds like your church needs to have a serious threshing session to figure out what they want their church community to look like. Things have changed...time to re-group.

[yovargas]

But we keep on keeping on here, because we don't feel a release from God to leave. Not yet, anyway.

Do you think it would be possible to explain this to a mostly-atheist dude like myself?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That, I think, would require a separate thread.

[yovargas]

Sounds like a good thread.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would love to see a thread like that. It's been a while since we have had a deep religious discussion, and I think we would be able to address the topic in a way in which everyone treats each other with respect.

But I'm not going to start the thread. (Probably.)

[MithLuin]

Crucifer means "cross-bearer" the way Lucifer means "light-bearer" and Theotokos means "God-bearer" (oops, that last one is Greek ). For a more obscure position, try Thurifer, or as one young priest I know says, the smoke swinger . It's the person who carries the incense, if that is used liturgically.

Here is a crucifer in a Lutheran church:

But I guess this might be Missouri Synod, which is rather different from ELCA.

For a valid Catholic mass, you need to have a crucifix on the altar. Carrying it in is one way of getting it there . Some churches do this all the time, but others no. There are variations in liturgy and liturgical styles within churches - crucifers and thurifers are more formal, regardless of which type of church we're talking about, but some places do use them every Sunday. The church where I grew up never had a crucifer, that I remember - it was a small country parish, and we had only 2 altar servers at each mass.


In my experience, liturgical roles are not burdensome. You just have to plan ahead to attend the liturgy that weekend, and show up a little early. Maybe sometimes there are training sessions, or the schedule gets messed up, but it's very low key. I have been an altar server and a sacristan as a young person. My brothers and sisters all were, too. Other members of my family have been lecters (readers), cantor (okay, so I have one sister who can sing!), and eucharistic ministers. It got to the point that we all did something, so the priest would just nab any of us to do any of the jobs - that was how I ended up lector once, even though I'd never been trained (guess he had me mixed up with my sister). So, I'm all for being involved that way, as long as you attend church regularly anyway.


Running committees can be more stressful, so generally it's a good idea to have an 'assistant' you can pass the job off to after a few years. You should always train replacements, so people don't get too used to you being the one who knows where everything is and how it is done.


My sister worked as a (paid) Youth Minister for 3 years as her full time job. My father is currently in training to become a deacon; that will be a part-time ordained position. It currently takes about 1-2 days a week, but he doesn't even have the job yet .


I usually avoid signing up for anything, but recently I've gotten involved with two discussion groups. One meets weekly for six weeks twice a year for 4 years. So, that's a total of...48 evenings? We're half-way through. I enjoy it, because it's just a few young women meeting to discuss the Catechism.

The other discussion group has been a ministry for about 4 years now, and the people who were running it have moved and/or gotten burned out. It meets nearly every week to discuss the Theology of the Body, and the discussion is based on either videos or rather difficult (for the layperson!) documents. That will be starting up in October, and that will be a two year commitment. There is more to that, as it involves more people, food, keys, etc., but it's still not very burdensome.

When the two groups overlap, I'll be booked two nights during the week, but it's still only maybe 5 hours/week. Most of the rest of my involvement at church is for one-time things, but that's partly because I haven't really stayed at one church long enough to get involved since I reached college age. I've recently moved again, so we'll see if I end up doing more through the new church.



Lali - I hope your situation gets smoothed out soon. Maybe when the new pastor comes everything will calm down a bit?

[Primula Baggins]

Great photo, Mith. That could be an ELCA church—it's pretty much up to the local congregations how ceremonial they want to be, and in some of the bigger, older churches back East, they've gotten pretty "high" (= "more like Catholics" ). In fact I'd say that's the general trend; a fair number of people in my church cross themselves during the benediction now. (I don't—it's not a natural gesture for me.)

Lali, certainly when you have a new pastor lined up, the pastoral search committee duties will be a bit lighter. Is the search all in your hands, or is there any administrative hierarchy involved? In my church the bishop suggests people, and the committee does phone interviews and visits candidates' present churches, culminating in a visit from the prospective pastor where the congregation can judge his or her manner and preaching ability for themselves. The whole process can take one to two years—often there is an interim pastor, usually a retired pastor who is willing to step in for a short term.

[Lurker]

Well, in Catholic Ireland, its more of a ceremonial thing, depending on the church. Some churches do it at all masses, some only at "events" like Easter, Confirmations etc. In other words, its not as simple as "Catholics do this". Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.

Personally (and I'm speaking only for myself here), I think that belongs to an older Catholicism, a throwback to the ceremony and style of the Latin mass. It doesn't really fit the "religion as community" that is present day Catholicism. Its fine on special occasions, but its not an everyday thing.

Alatar, that's very interesting. I didn't know they don't do it in Ireland every Sunday. Here in Canada, it's every Sunday.

[WampusCat]

This past Sunday we finally had our new priest after a two-year interim. Yes, we had a lot of members fall away. And even dedicated members (like me) chose to skip a lot more services than usual. But on the first Sunday for our new minister, it was standing-room only. I suspect things will get back on track very quickly.

So there are definitely good reasons to stick it out, Lali. Just don't let yourself be consumed by trying to keep everything pulled together. Sometimes things have to fall apart to come back together in a new way.

[Alatar]

Oh, I'm sure in some churches they do, Lurker. Just not in all.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure there's no crucifix on the altar at my church Mith. as in, the physical table used for the service. There's one in the altar "space" alright. On the wall above the Tabernacle. Not on the actual altar itself though.

Maybe I'm wrong, must look again tonight at rehearsal.

Lali, here's one simple way to lessen the load. Put the lyrics of all songs into a hymn book and just put the name or number of the hymn on screen. More work once off, but simpler in the long run. Besides, does that screen not feel a bit like Karaoke for God?