Faith Works 2-14-15

Faith Works 2-14-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why a contemporary service?

___

 

Some of my recent "Why a…?" columns ask questions that often may not have been asked by much of anyone. They've addressed topics folks may have wondered about, but not been voiced aloud.

 

Not so with "Why a contemporary service?" Some still use the term "worship wars" for the last few decades, as many congregations, large and small, have struggled with whether or how to offer this new expression of Christian worship.

 

I'm in either an ideal location or a terrible position to comment on this feature of modern American church life. The congregation where I pastor does not, um, well, we don't, uh…. Well, there's no screen or projector in our sanctuary. If you visit sometime you'll see why. It's just not happening there. Sorry!

 

And to jump ahead a moment, it's been an interesting shift in what a "contemporary service" means that the key element has changed from drums in the chancel, which in the 60's & 70's was the first "contemporary worship" debate for many of us, to whether or not you project the words to the worship songs (don't say hymns!) up in front of the worshipers. Today, a contemporary service may be bluegrass – no drums! – or even jazz combos, but the central feature is that you don't use hymnbooks, and that imagery is present and changing for the message as well as the music in some form of projection screen.

 

Anyhow, the church I serve doesn't have one. We're pretty traditional, sort of. But during my "sabbatical years" I preached fairly often in contemporary style services, and I have to admit that occasionally I still fondly recall the added step of developing the message that called on me to hunt up images, pictures to go with the words, even the occasional film clip or video take. It's a different process for sermon development, and it has some real strengths.

 

And my wife has been worship team leader for a church from their launch through today, over ten years now, which has never been anything but contemporary in her service, leading from the keyboards and selecting pre-service songs, specials, and the closing sing-out – all sung, when the congregation joins in, from words up on the screen. She's directed choirs and church choirs and handbell choirs in very traditional services in many places through the years, but she will tell you with great emphasis: congregational singing is strong when no one has a hymnbook to hide behind.

 

Think about it: if you have to lift your chin to look at the words, you just increased the singing volume by a factor of two or three right there!

 

But the question is: why do a contemporary service? Is it just to get people to sing out? No.

 

The main, the best reason that I am aware of is that there are significant swaths of the population who aren't going to come into a church service where the songs are slower and more "old timey," who are strongly put off by formality and ritual, yet are interested in the ancient claims of scripture and the teachings of Jesus. Are pipe organs and neckties called for in the Bible? Nope. Dressing up is even a topic lacking (to my eyes) a clear teaching. Come, come and worship, come now…I can find all of that in sacred writings, but "only after you've washed behind the ears and put on a clean shirt" not so much.

 

That's the atmosphere of contemporary, the jeans and t-shirt side of things, and while some churches can pull off a mixed worship space where neckties and dresses are seen right alongside of work boots and worn denim jackets, it's usually something that has to happen at separate times, if not different places. The music, though, that's where the real conflict still happens.

 

As a leader of traditional worship, even so I get very frustrated with most off-hand criticism of Christian contemporary music (CCM), and with most scholarly critiques. "It's un-Biblical" – you just showed me you've actually looked at the lyrics very little, since I've found CCM to be even more Bible-focused than most old school hymns ("In the Garden," anyone?). "It's repetitive" – go check Psalm 136 and get back to me. "It's too loud.." – okay, we need to talk. Sometimes, that's more than a fair point.

 

Next week, part two!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about worship music that lifts you up at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-7-15

Faith Works 2-7-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why a Sabbath?

___

 

This is going to be one of those unfortunate "do as I say, not as I do" homilies.

 

A sinner redeemed by grace, that's all I can count on, and moving onwards to perfection. Anyhow. Sabbath, Sunday, a day of rest, the Lord's Day. What's up with that?

 

Sunday still has a sort of secular sacredness in TV ads and promotions, which will occasionally point to the one day to sleep in, the one day to read the papers, the day for brunch. For churchgoers, it's a day to (in many cases) get up earlier than even the rest of the week, and a change of clothes or at least a focused attitude more than letting go.

 

(Yes, there are Seventh-Day Adventists & Baptists in the area who, along with our Jewish brothers & sisters would point out we're doing it wrong, and the Sabbath of the Lord's command is Saturday. Most Christians very early on moved it to celebrate the first day of the week, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and since that's the most common, back to Sunday…)

 

There are still many of us around who remember when you drove to church on quiet streets past closed stores; they were called "Blue Laws" (another long story) and basically go back to our Puritan and Calvinist early settlers in this country who affirmed that the Sabbath should be a day of rest, or else. So the state and civil authorities enforced a no-work, no-nothing-but-church policy for the day, believing that was the best way to honor God, the right way to "keep the Sabbath" in a holy fashion.

 

Even in those days, there were debates about what you should do on Sunday, after church or between services if you had an evening gathering, too. Some held to a no-work, no-fun, nothing but the Bible and genteel conversation kind of approach.

 

Other Puritan divines suggested that play and fun and leisure were a part of God's intention for the renewal built into the pattern of creation; John Piper speaks of what he calls "Christian hedonism," where we are called by God to find joy and pleasure and satisfaction within the bounds God has set, but within them to actively seek celebration and enjoyment.

 

Orthodox Jews (who, again, mark the Sabbath observance from sunset Friday through Saturday) smile and tell you that a married couple making love on the Sabbath is a "Double Mitzvah," a special blessing right along with good food on Shabbat honoring the joy God intended for the day.

 

So honoring the Sabbath is, at its heart, meant to be a blessing, not a burden. And Jesus famously says "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," which generally is seen as pushing off the table, at least for most Christians, the idea that we need a big heaping pile of rules to make Sunday special.

 

And through the last few decades, Sunday rules as to liquor sales, car lots, and Little League playoff games have fallen away, and Sunday has become just another day, or at least the back half of the weekend.

 

What some are trying to renew in the church and in society is the reminder of what's at the heart of Sabbathkeeping: you can't do it all, you can't control everything, and you are a finite created being who needs rest. Just as a day calls for sleep at the end, a week cries out for a time set apart in some way.

 

We set it apart, alright, and jam it full of leisure activities that wear us out to where we're many of us looking forward to the simple grind of Monday at work.

 

As a pastor, Sunday has to be a day of work, so to speak. I get up early, have the biggest set responsibilities of my vocation to fulfill, and often a hatful of unexpected responsibilities to shove in around those.

 

Which is why, for years, I take Tuesday as my day off from pastoral work. (Cue laughter of the multitudes.) Right, because I'm terrible at taking a day off, plus meetings keep having to be on that day, or surgeries, or funerals. But God has a way of dealing with such as me.

 

If you visit Newark Central this Sunday, you won't find me in the pulpit. I'm having surgery, and getting my Sabbath for a few days whether I'm ready or not!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about how you keep the Sabbath at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 2-5-15

Notes From My Knapsack 2-5-15

Jeff Gill

 

A Body in the Well: Feb. 1816

___

"Call for Hezekiah Mirk! Call for Hezekiah Mirk!"

 

The boy's shouts echoed off the slope of Sugar Loaf to the east, caroming faintly from Prospect Hill to the north and back west from Orchard Hill, blocking the already risen sun from the main intersection of Granville.

 

To the south, the valley of the Pataskala River opened out, down the slope past the Burying Ground. Hezekiah Mirk sat looking out over the valley, on the end of Mr. Gavit's tavern porch, sliding a blade across his sharpening stone with a steady whishh, whishh, whishh.

 

"Mister Mirk, I believe someone is calling for you," said Sarah Gavit from inside the door, over near the fireplace where she'd been walking an armload of wood in from the other end of the porch. She came back and began to close the heavy timbered door, leaning out enough to stare quizzically at his back. Whishh, whishh, whishh.

 

As if he saw her clearly and knew her thoughts as well, without looking up from his task Hezekiah said "He will get here soon enough at that rate."

 

She leaned back and began to close the door, then realized the patter of booted feet down Broad Street was what he referred to; the day's chill was not quite enough to keep her from not quite pulling the door shut, and listening at the opening.

 

"Mister Mirk, Mister Mirk, there's a body in the well!" So shouted a young lad, tall and lank, out of breath but with enough energy to leap onto the porch without taking the two steps, nearly falling across the pile of wood the Honorable Mister Gavit had piled at the street end the night before.

 

"Sit yourself down, take a breath while you still have one," said Hezekiah, standing and turning in one easy motion from his seat on the other end of the alarmingly creaking porch. "Whose well?"

 

"Mister Avery's well, beyond Sugar Loaf," the boy replied, gasping his way to more regular breath with admirable rapidity. "His wife found it this morning when she went to draw water." Sarah Gavit snorted just inside the front door, making the lad jump, turn, bow, and then go on. "He and his hired man pulled the body out, and it's no one they know from here."

 

"And newly arrived in Granville, they expect me to know him?" asked Hezekiah beneath bristling eyebrows. His already dark and ruddy face beneath a cap of thick black curls furrowed in a not-unusual frown, not unfriendly, either, but the worried look that people in the village were already learning meant thinking more than disliking.

 

"No, sir," answered the lad, "but since you've come from the wars and all, sir, they hoped you would know a bit more about how he . . . why it is that . . . "

 

"How he died? They take me as an expert on that subject, do they?"

 

The lad nodded glumly. Peters' boy, he suddenly remembered.

 

"Well, I expect I am. Not the only man in this place familiar with life's end, but with more knowledge of it than I might wish. Let me get my coat."

 

Sarah Gavit stepped back, holding open the door for him, to which he offered a courteous and sardonic bow, and then swiftly walked into the long room in the front of the tavern, plucked his well-worn Army coat off a peg near the fire, and made a slighter bow to the house's mistress as he went back out onto the porch. She closed the door behind him, and went back to her chores, questions set aside like a task whose time has not yet arrived.

 

Outside, fastening up his brass buttons, the boy asked Hezekiah "Do y'think he was murdered, Mister Mirk?"

 

With a short laugh that was more of a bark, he replied "That, or he was uncommonly clumsy. Come, show me the way."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what you'd like to learn about Granville history at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-31-15

Faith Works 1-31-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why a preaching robe?

___

 

 

Cue the "disrobed" jokes.

 

You can call them preaching gowns, Geneva gowns, academic gowns, and any more you don't see them all that often, but a special robe or gown for preaching has been a standard over the last generation.

 

In my own tradition, which has had its splits over the years, a hundred years ago a morning coat and striped trousers were more the norm, at least in Ohio; it "casualed" to a dark suit somewhere around World War I, and that was traditional in most Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, and a fair number of Baptist congregations for many years.

 

Preaching robes, the cousin to more formal liturgical vestments still called for in communions like the Anglican and Episcopal, Lutheran, and of course Roman Catholic Christian traditions, are a practical solution to a problem many of us wrestle with again today.

 

If you are a presider or preacher in the liturgical traditions above mentioned, you don't get up Sunday and wonder "what should I wear?" It really doesn't matter much (although many traditions have guidelines for presiders on their subfusc wear, as it's referred to), since in a truly liturgical tradition, you might have your personal garb, a cassock over that, an alb atop that, and possibly a stole and cope and . . . well, it gets complicated.

 

Most Christian traditions common in Ohio, if not liturgically emphatic, either expected preachers to wear a somber suit (we're talking almost entirely men back in the day, too), or a simple black gown. A preaching stole began to be standard, where both the Christian calendar and some personal emphasis could be expressed. The stole, a narrow sort-of-scarf that hangs down in front going around the back of your neck, would display the color of the church season (purple in Advent and Lent, white for Christmas and Easter, red at Pentecost and ordinations, green for nearly everything else), and symbols of the Gospel on the ends, embroidered or woven.

 

At my ordination, I received a number of stoles, one from my congregation with the Disciples' chalice on it, one from my family woven in many colors, and one from my wife she'd picked up at a Benedictine monastery we'd been visiting earlier that she saw me handle with admiration. They symbolize both the towel Jesus took on an a servant at the Last Supper for the footwashing, and the yoke we share with Christ in leadership.

 

But today robes and gowns and such are considered a wee bit formal, and contemporary worship usually is led by folks in their nicer street clothes (clean, tidy, but ordinary), and that says something important to visitors as well.

 

At our congregation, I split the difference (yes, I know, you're shocked). The choir has robes, as they have a set-apart role in worship just like the preacher, and truth be told they don't love them, so our mutual deal is that in Advent through Christmas, and as we get further into Lent and for Easter, we robe up. And when I'm doing a formal church wedding, I both robe and have a stole my sister made with a cross and linked wedding rings, from the same material as her dress (she's talented that way). Sometimes for funerals in the church I will "go robed" and other times not. It depends.

 

And that's the challenge today. It's not, for most of us, a simple "check the book" decision on what to wear. Many of us in preaching and pastoring know that too much formality can push away a seeker, but some in search of a faith to hold want a little more structure than their lives have right now. It's a fine balance, when to lead in everyday clothes, when to don all the special garments I can find and keep the personal statements to a minimum. I go back and forth, and suspect that's the new normal.

 

It does mean that on Sunday morning you have to think, if you're preaching, about what to wear, something my honored predecessors mostly didn't, unless it was because they had a lunch program after church. There's something to the steady simplicity of Martin Luther's choice of a basic black academic gown, signaling "I've done my studies, and have prepared this word to you" without any ostentation or attitude.

 

That, and a bright woven stole on the dark background, is my favorite preaching uniform. What's yours?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County. Tell him what you think best clothes a preacher or worship leader at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-24-15

Faith Works 1-24-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why a choir?

___

 

My little series for 2015 on "why?' about various aspects of church life needed to shift a bit this week from my original, semi-methodical plan.

 

(Stop laughing. I can be methodical, if not Methodist. Sometimes!)

 

Today, at Second Presbyterian Church, we will have a celebration of the life of Ann Glaser. Ann was a musician herself, and a music teacher in public schools (most notably in heath), but I knew her as a church choir director. She had been retired for many years, in very poor health these last few, but she never stopped singing.

 

Ann was a member at Second, and I thank Rev. Charlie Smith and their organist Rick Black for letting me be a part of Ann's homegoing; she directed both vocal and handbell choirs at Second, then when they hired a full-time music director she shifted to St. John's UCC, then came to Central Christian where I met her in my previous time at the church I now pastor, then as the associate.

 

She loved handbells, and her daughter Kris and I believe she was the first to bring handbell choirs to Licking County, a form of group performance that is now in many congregations around our area. She and Kris also put on the first handbell festival for the area in the early 90s, affirming and celebrating the unique qualities of these musical devices; the sound of eight handbell choirs playing together is something I hope never to forget.

 

But why do churches, most of them, have choirs in the first place? Well, like so many of these "why" questions, it goes back to monks. The monastic enclosures and customs that shape everything from school commencement ceremonies to Harry Potter iconography.

 

You catch a hint of this history in the names of the standard choir sections. A monastic choir would have been all male (convents are a completely different story, parallel history, for a later telling). The tenor voice "holds" the melody – think "tenacity" or "tenant" and you get the linguistic hook – so then lower voices form a "bass" from the Latin and Italian for "low". Higher voices were, of course, "alto" and those higher, supra- to the musical line, make up sopranos.

 

Most musical terms come from Italian, because the more Latinate history is also more one of chant, the sung form of religious service and worship that would carry through a vast stone church in the time before electronic amplification. Singing in a monotone can have its charms, but harmonies and polyphonies steadily developed through the centuries, and the parts we associate with a "standard" Western choir.

 

Even in the Protestant era – think Bach in Lutheran Germany – the idea that the music for a worship service is best delivered by a trained choir held steady, monks and nuns aside. The profession of choral singing developed, there and in Anglican churches of the English-speaking world.

 

In the resistance to state churches that gave birth to Congregational and Baptist forms, there was some reaction against choirs. A paid, set-apart group leading worship was displaced in favor of congregational singing, hence the rise of hymnody and hymns for all to join.

 

Early America in this, as most things, saw all sorts; the last century has seen a general leveling, with fewer churches having paid soloists let alone choirs, but more congregations of all types emphasizing everyone singing (contemporary worship we'll also leave to another day). But we've also all seen that, left entirely on their own, congregations don't always sing out, let alone get an enjoyment of parts and harmonies. A few trained, even if voluntary singers in a choir, can bring out the best in the whole gathering, and a special worship offering or two can add even more at the same time.

 

Ann Glaser gave over a big part of her life to being that key trained professional, a choir director, who could lead the chorus but was always mindful of the congregation. I'm blessed today to have Patty Comisford and Susie Morris in those roles with our choirs at Central, and a strong chancel choir (that also has a great fellowship spirit together). Most pastors know that good choir directors are, as Proverbs 31 almost says, more precious than rubies.

 

I should know; when I found a good choir director, I married her!

 

For my wife Joyce, for Patty and Susie, for Kris and her mother Ann whose passing we mark today, for your choir director wherever you worship: let us all give thanks.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your use of music in worship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Knapsack 1-21-15

Notes From My Knapsack 1-21-15

Jeff Gill

 

Cold, hard, silent seasons

___

 

Once the holidays are behind us, and even the college football national championship is a memory, not an anticipation, we're simply in winter.

 

Cold, hard, silent winter. Sometimes with snow, often with ice, always with a chill that reaches deep within, to rattle bones and shiver the skin.

 

This is why John Sutphin Jones left behind the beauty of Bryn Du and founded Naples, Florida (that long pier out to deep water? it ran a coal car rail line to bring baggage from steamers in to shore, thanks to the Sunday Creek Mining Company), that is why so many "snowbirds" leave us in central Ohio and flee to warmer climes whether on the Gulf, the Rio Grande, or any points south they can find.

 

Winter in central Ohio can be very, very hard. Hard on houses, hard on cars, hard on bodies, young, old, aging or infant. We've had a long run of fairly mellow seasons, with just the high drama of ice storms and derechos for seasoning. Last winter there was a coating of snow for most of the darkest weeks of winter; this winter our snow hasn't been as substantial, but the temps have more than made up for the lack of frozen precipitation.

 

Is there more or less winter in our future? Even the assumption of global climate change due to human impacts doesn't clarify what central Ohio will see over the next few decades: the models for what's often called warming can mean cooling and snowpack here even as glaciers melt elsewhere.

 

My aging joints and almanac interpretations point towards a more wintry future for Granville, with snow and cold to mark the season. Good news for skiers, not-so-good for pretty much everyone else.

 

Tree trimming means that limbs are clipped back beyond where they can freeze and fall onto power lines; snow blades and salt spreaders on village trucks keep the side streets clear, or at least maneuverable. Along Broadway, the restaurants are looking to specials that fight off the chill, even as our frozen custard shop is shuttered and dark until more friendly temperatures prevail

 

Comet Lovejoy has been a feature of night skies for those who know where to look, a borderline naked-eye cometary body recently discovered and briefly in view across the flanks of Taurus, now fading as it moves past the Sun. Orion gazes impassively at the shimmering fuzzy light to his right, while Sirius leaps to pursue from below and to the left as you look into the southern skies on these icy but crystalline nights.

 

Winter in Ohio has some attractions, the lines of low-light shadow across snowy coatings making a frigid geometry out of overpasses and tree limbs. Returning to warm living rooms and burrowing under thick blankets can bring a joyful glow to even the most wearied heart.

 

And bit by bit, morning by morning, the light at dawn comes sooner and sooner, days growing longer and night, and cold, feeling constraints on either end. Soon enough, we'll groan at dawn's early light, and mutter about the heat. In those days, may we remember these!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; tell him about your joys of wintertime at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-17-15

Faith Works 1-17-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why a preacher?

___

 

Last week, I invited you to think through the question with me "why a pastor?"

 

What you may or may not think of as much the same thing is "why a preacher?"

 

Preacher, parson, reverend, padre, pastor are all ways of referring to the role I was talking about last week. You may hear "preacher man" but of course in many, even most traditions today, the ministerial role may be fulfilled by a preacher woman – my own denomination has long had women in ministry, and it was a lady Rev. who baptized and married my mother, so it's in my DNA of ministry images that women can serve in that central role of Christian leadership.

 

Preaching, public speaking in church, is an area that women in ministry have entered, and felt resistance in: we're not far from an era when the power of the voice was all that got a message to the back rows, and men were the assumed voice of authority in the culture as well as in church.

 

To be a preacher, though, is at essence to be a storyteller, and there are many means and modes in which to tell stories. Loud and overwhelming isn't the only way, not even always the best way, to take a tale and tell it to a gathering of hearers. So women in preaching has helped, I think, to expand everyone's understandings of ministry for many different approaches, not just genders.

 

Why, though, do we need preachers as part of what faith communities do? Is preaching to tell people what to do, or how to live? Can you do what religious folk call worship without preaching?

 

As a Christian pastor, I have a story to tell. The story of God's promises fulfilled and will revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is my story. It can be your story, too, and basically my job each week is . . . to tell the same story, again and again, so all may hear and know and understand and believe.

 

In other words, I tell the same story every week, every occasion for worship. No, really, that's what I do.

 

And I think most preachers in the Christian community would admit, with varying degrees of ruefulness, that we're just telling the same old, old story over and over and over again.

 

You can see where that takes some special skills – just to make the gospel story fresh and new and making sense in today's context (sometimes referred to as "keeping it relevant"). Some preachers are short and succinct, and others are out of an expository tradition where a longer, more methodical presentation of the Bible version of the gospel is the norm. So sermons may be more of a homily, five minutes or so in length; I grew up in a church where a thirty minute sermon was considered standard, twenty-five minutes being a gift for which everyone gave thanks at Sunday dinner. And our local history tells of preachers in the 1800s who were praised and honored for their ninety minute to three hour long sermons.

 

Seriously. (They didn't have anything else to entertain them, you might say uncharitably.)

 

I am generally what's called a "lectionary preacher," which is a three year cycle of the Christian Bible, Old and New Testaments, that many church bodies share together as a pattern for worship and sermons. Since the first Sunday of Advent last month, we've been in Year B of that cycle, with an emphasis this lectionary year on Mark's Gospel, A going with Matthew, C with Luke, and John's (the Fourth) Gospel sifted through all three, especially around Christmas and Easter.

 

But last year I took a different approach for a congregational effort to read the Bible together in a chronological approach, and left the lectionary behind. It's a guideline, but a good one; in general, the lectionary keeps me from just preaching on my favorite three or thirty passages, and not getting out into some of the wider expanses of Bible reading and preaching.

 

Can the laity, "lay members," non-ordained, not seminary trained people, preach out of scripture and tell the stories of the Bible in an illuminative way for the congregation?  Sure they can, but it helps to have a solid educated grounding in what the Bible is saying, so we can re-tell those stories in an inviting, converting, transforming way.

 

Have you ever preached a sermon? Have you ever wanted to?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about preaching has changed your life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Downton Christian Church cabinet meeting

Downton Christian Church cabinet meeting (transcript)

 

Rev. Charles Carson: I believe it is time for us to begin. If you will take up your agendas and…

 

Thomas Barrow, chair of the property committee: Pardon me, but it doesn't look like we're all here yet. Perhaps if we waited a few more moments?

 

Mrs. Beryl Patmore, president of the CWF: Time's a wastin', I'd say. Those ham loaves aren't going to make themselves.

 

Miss Daisy Mason, new deaconess chair: Ooh, I could go check the parking lot and…

 

Mrs. Patmore: Sit down, Daisy.

 

Rev. Carson: As I was saying, our agenda calls for an opening devotional and prayer, and I've asked Dr. Clarkson to…

 

Robert Crawley, chair of the trustees (and owner of Grantham Realty): In fact, I had prepared a little something for this occasion, Rev. Carson, if you wouldn't mind.

 

Rev. Carson: Of course, that would be splendid, if indeed Dr. Clarkson does not…

 

Dr. Richard Clarkson, chair of the deacons: Mine will keep to the next month's meeting. (Shakes head resignedly.)

 

Rev. Carson: Why thank you, Doctor, that's very kind of you.

 

Mr. Crawley: In the later chapters of Isaiah, well beyond the familiar lines of comfort to which I know we all regularly turn in our travels through this vale of woe…

 

(Ten minutes later)

 

Mr. Crawley: …and with that brief survey, I fear we must conclude. (Sudden jerking of heads around the table from nearly nodding off.)

 

Rev. Carson (gently): And the prayer, Mr. Crawley?

 

Mr. Crawley: Oh, Dr. Clarkson may do that.

 

Dr. Clarkson: What? Who? Oh, yes, certainly. (Discontented shake of his head; prays.)

 

All: Amen.

 

Rev. Carson: So now if we could get started, not that we haven't been engaged in some very productive work (nodding to Mr. Crawley, who beams back at him), but on your agendas, you will next see that we have a special proposal from Mr. Barrow as to the re-roofing of the education wing.

 

Mrs. Elsie Hughes, chair of evangelism (softly): Now we're in for it.

 

Mr. Barrow: What was that, Mrs. Hughes?

Mrs. Hughes: Oh, nothing Mr. Barrow, not a thing that concerns you.

 

Mr. Barrow: Regardless, as I was saying, I have this friend who has been by our church a few times, not to attend, mind you, I'm sure he's very active in a church of his own elsewhere, not that that's any of my business, but when he's come by here, he's noticed our hail damage.

 

Mr. Tom Branson, chair of the men's fellowship: Hail damage, Mr. Barrow? I'd not noticed anything like that.

 

Mr. Barrow (archly): Which you wouldn't. That's the sort of thing you wouldn't notice unless you were a roofing expert, which my, um, associate happens to be. He has very kindly offered to re-roof our entire complex for what, I can assure you, is a very reasonable amount, and assures me that we won't be out more than ten percent of the total since he will get it from the insurance company for the hail damage.

 

Mr. Crawley: Well, that's good, then.

 

Mrs. Patmore (softly): Ten percent back to him, more likely.

 

Mr. Barrow: What was that, Mrs. Patmore?

Mrs. Patmore: Oh, just a tickle in my throat. Never you mind.

 

Mr. Barrow: I see. (Glowers.)

 

Rev. Carson: Ahem. That's a question that should involve the finance committee, which is chaired by Ms. Mary, Mr. Robert's daughter, who was not able to attend due to a pressing engagement elsewhere. She was going to send her sister Edith, who turns out to be involved with something else tonight.

 

Mr. Crawley: I'm sure they're spending their time wisely.

 

(Around table generally): Oh, certainly….of course….yes, yes….

 

Rev. Carson: I was going to ask of the memorials committee if there were funds there we could use, to initiate this roofing project.

 

Mr. John Bates, memorials committee: No.

 

Rev. Carson: Ah. I see. Well, that sounds definite.

 

Mr. Branson: Could I ask, Mr. Barrow, if he has any details in hand about the type and quality of the new roofing, or what the total cost is likely to be?

 

Mr. Barrow: I've given this matter my best attention, and am fully aware of everything that goes into the question. The, um, details of the roofing materials are, well, something we can find out quickly from my . . . friend. They will be extremely cost-effective, I'm certain of that. And the overall color scheme will only change slightly, from the grey pebbled look we have now to a more slate grey texture.

 

Mr. Crawley: Oh. (furrowed brow)

 

Rev. Carson: Indeed?

 

Mrs. Patmore: Might one inquire what would be the problem with that?

Mrs. Hughes: Widow Violet wouldn't like it. (General raising of eyebrows.)

 

Miss Daisy: I don't understand; Mrs. Crawley isn't even on the cabinet?

 

(Shaking of heads around the table; Mrs. Patmore scribbles something on the back of her agenda, slides it over to Daisy, who quietly says "Ohhhhh.")

 

Rev. Carson: That would seem to close that line of inquiry rather completely. (Mr. Barrow looks disgusted, says nothing.) Let's continue on through our agenda in order, then, shall we?