Sunday, August 05, 2007

Learning what it is to be "The Pastor's Wife"

I went to my first ever voters' meeting as The Pastor's Wife. Sad to say, I really had to bite my tongue on things. It just felt like people would be thinking "Oh, she just agrees with Pastor because she's married to him." Like I didn't have my own opinion. Now don't get me wrong. Nothing went badly at all, in fact it went really really well. Not that we did much. Matthew brought up starting weekly communion. Most people were for it, but we didn't vote since several families were not there. They used to have it, but it changed somewhere in the last year or couple of years because of the pastor at the time. (I don't know which one.) The people that weren't for it (not necessarily against it) said they liked to have it less frequently so that they desired it more when it came, because they wanted more variety in the services, or because "1st and 3rd" is what they grew up with. Just because you grew up with it that way doesn't mean it's right and as for variety, I don't think it's called variety when you omit something from the service. If anything, having weekly communion adds variety with communion hymns. They are different every Sunday, and even a lot of times different every year! (Unlike the hymn of the day which many churches will use the same on corresponding Sundays each year.) About desiring the Eucharist: first off, we all need it whether we feel like it or not. We need to examine ourselves! Read through the commandments! It doesn't take very long to realize how much we have sinned and how much we need the Lord's forgiveness, which His body and blood provide in/with/under the bread and wine! Now, I'm not saying that these people don't think or feel like they're sinners. I just think that they may be a little misguided. I think it really takes an outsider to see just how much a church is influenced by the social, religious, and economic sphere around them. Though they believe it is the true body and blood of Christ, there are still tendencies toward the "touchy feely" and the over emotional. There are two other Lutheran churches here, both ELCA. Most all others are Baptist or Pentecostal.

Now, I don't want any of you out there to think that I'm really complaining. This church is wonderful! I didn't know a church like this could survive this long in the south. They really for the most part have been taught extremely well. They do the liturgy every Sunday. In fact we will be re-introducing TLH pg 15/5 next Sunday (in the form of LSB Divine Service 3) because they used to do it every other Sunday until more recently and everyone says they've really missed it. Next Sunday will be no communion so we'll have to do "page 5". It's just kind of sad, on my part, when the shut-ins get communion more often than then rest of the congregation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You know what Matthew could do is just go ahead and have weekly communion and if no one wants to take it every week, then they don't have too. There are families in this church here that don't take communion every week because they grew up with having every other week. They started it weekly when the vacancy pastor was here. I haven't really been going to voters meetings, but I probably should again because I'm the only one who knows what's going on with Sunday school and I'd like to get a high school Sunday school class sometime in the near future. Don't know if that will ever happen, but worth a shot. Anyways, take care and talk to you later!
-Melissa