HELLO!

It was a full and moving service we shared this morning at Woodlawn. I found Andre’s song, he wrote and sang for his son Elias, a memorable time. Given the length of the Baptismal Sacrament, I needed to keep my sermon shorter than usual. It’s a good thing I think on my feet…I could see people’s energy waning at the 11 am mark. Still, I was very pleased with how the service was planned, offered and experienced. If you missed it, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeG59HHkNRk

The composition of a worship service, the weaving together of prayers, readings, a sermon, music, announcement, etc…and the execution of same, requires many skills. The one aspect of such planning I most value, 35 years later, is “fit”. Do the service, as a whole, hold together, maintain a theme, offer something otherwise not known, does it have a “flow” and are adjustment made, throughout, to ensure the service keeps on being effective. To do this, I keep an eye on the whole church, in the pews, in the choir, in the AV loft, I even imagine some of those I know to be watching from home. I am not tied to the text. My attention is not fixated on the bulletin or the sermon. I am constantly watching the facial expressions of those gathered, and their body language.

Some of you come for the music. Full stop. Some come for the music and can absorb a short sermon. Some come for the community, being with. Some come for the sermon. Some come for all of that and more. For those in the first two groups, there would be dancing in the streets over my effort to shorten the sermon, like I did today. I get it. My only words of advice for them, “Not everything is like you.” For every person who has tuned me out at the ten-minute mark, there are others who feel cheated. Planning worship, the sermon, means considering a range of listeners, not just me, or you. I may not always get it right. I am not being stubborn. I am trying to connect with a wider audience.

On a humorous note, I know I am in the minority, I live in a visual world. Thus all day people were focused on my haircut (I am NOT exaggerating). The best line of the day belongs to Jerry and Barrie, “you look like a Chia Pet”. I loved it. Do you remember the “ch-ch-ch-Chia” jingle? My mind goes back to Kresge’s in the Halifax Shopping Centre, in the 1970’s. It was a terra cotta figurine manufactured in Oaxaca, Mexico, sold along with a chia seed spread. When watered for a week or two, the seeds sprouted hairlike grass. The ads labeled Chia Pets “the pottery that grows.” The Chia Pet became likened to a hairstyle. And clearly, I that hairstyle.

Peace, Kevin “the voice that grows” Little