We knew from the beginning that this church would be very welcoming. On top of the fact that I'd met with the rector and knew him to be a good and thoughtful man of Christ, we also have many neighbors and friends who go there. But it has been even more welcoming than I imagined. Our old church was larger, and I think that added some to the impersonal feelings there--you could find a niche, but aside from a monthly welcoming tea, you really had to make your own way. Here, people recognize my unfamiliar face and introduce themselves. At one point a woman overheard me instructing the kids on how to kneel at the Communion rail, realized we were new, saw the ages of my kids, and went to find the Youth Minister to meet us after the service.
However, that's not the reason we changed--only a nice benefit. I had many friends at the old church--we'd been there for ten years--so I don't want to imply that I don't miss those familiar faces every Sunday morning. I do. But I'd miss them more if they'd been there during my family's crises over the past year.
Anyway, that is an aside. I wanted to talk more about this Sunday. We attend the 9:00 service, which is for families. I love the way it's organized. It's the regular Episcopal Eucharist service/Mass/whatever it's called (I'm not sure yet) but there's a children's homily during the time for the homily. Then after Eucharist, the children are dismissed to Church School. My elementary daughter goes to Church School and the older three go to Youth Group. Then with the children gone, there's an adult homily. The assistant priest (I'm sure he has a different title) who gave the homily this morning started by teasing the rector about giving him all the hard texts when the rector made their schedule of who was presiding at what service. :) It was a hard text: Luke 16:1-13. I've never understood the parable before, though I'm supposedly not stupid; and I don't understand it any better today. But the message of having to do the right thing in the small moments as well as in the larger ones, I do understand.
After the service, we had Adult Sunday School. They do have Adult Formation in the Roman Catholic Church, but while I wouldn't say no one ever went, it wasn't like this, where everybody just sort of filed out of the church and into the fellowship hall. I'm sure people slipped out, but an awful lot of people went, and my understanding was that there's an entirely different group that meets downstairs during the same time, for parents of young children. It was the complete opposite of our old parish, where half the people left, a quarter of the people stayed for doughnuts, and the other quarter went on to teach Sunday School or attend an adult formation class.
The big thing was--my husband didn't complain. I don't think I could have gotten him to attend an adult formation class for anything at our old church, and here he just went along. The rector spoke about the Old Testament. I'd taught Old Testament in 6th grade Sunday School, but this was a great refresher, and folks asked great questions.
This isn't a particularly meaty entry, I suppose. I just wanted to record it because the morning made me happy.
