How was church today?

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The inclusion of several hymns as well as the instrumentals on the piano add to the whole experience. At Hillhurst they sometimes seem to skimp on the music and it really does compliment the spoken word. Before covid a service was often an hour or longer. I would not say your service at under 50 minutes was too long at all. Also, important to include prayers and a good long bit of scripture as you did. A few services at Hillhurst since covid have been barely over 30 minutes and they feel incomplete.
 
I am happiest when our service hovers around an hour.

In-person worship, when there is the period of sharing of joys and concerns, we tend to trend to closer to 75 mins.
 
Sermon today was by Kim Holmes-Younger a student minister at Hillhurst. She was speaking of Pentecost. She described Hillhurst in the days before Rev. Pentland came as minister as being "quaint." I found this offensive as I was there and it was not quaint. Hillhurst goes to great lengths each week to make gay and lesbian and First Nations people feel welcome and then they denigrate those who came before. A better word than quaint might have been faithful to describe the folks who showed up week after week and held the congregation together during the lean times of the early 90's when a lot of the congregation had departed over the decision to ordain gay and lesbian folks. Guess I'm no fan of dualism and pitting one against the other, including one generation against another. Will certainly listen to future sermons by Kim as not going to pass judgement based on this one sermon.
 
Well, I was at the church this morning, running the slide show part of the service. That went well, but apparently our livestream was bad, noise-wise, again. We appear to be having a bandwidth problem. Very frustrating, when some many work so hard to prepare for this.

(YJNK, I think we're getting old. I share your preference for the word faithful, although I remember the day, very early on in my membership, when I went to the Worship Team to propose that we offer different translations of the Prayer of Jesus on occasion. Two members of the team at the time looked at me as if I'd proposed putting the cross upside down...)
 
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She described Hillhurst in the days before Rev. Pentland came as minister as being "quaint." I found this offensive as I was there and it was not quaint.
Was she around back then? If not, I hope someone sets her straight. Dissing the people who kept the church going in that period is not something that should be coming from a minister, student or otherwise. Would be a good teaching moment for her because doing something like that in a settled position could be a major upset.
 
We appear to be having a bandwidth problem.
Get on Speedtest.net from a computer in the church and pay particular attention to the first number it gives, which is what folks in my world call "latency". A high latency can be a problem even if your speed is in spec. Also, make sure your up and down speeds match, or are close to, what you are paying for. If not, call support. And for both latency and speed/bandwidth, sometimes just rebooting your modem/router (or both of you have separate units) will do the trick. It has fixed it for me a couple times when network issues were plaguing my remote work VPN connection.
 
She described Hillhurst in the days before Rev. Pentland came as minister as being "quaint."

The other point about that is that congregations need NOT to have "star ministers". That sort of charismatic leadership can lead to wide swings in a congregation's health and viability, when they retire, as they inevitably will. Dr. Pentland is no spring chicken, LOL.
 
The other point about that is that congregations need NOT to have "star ministers". That sort of charismatic leadership can lead to wide swings in a congregation's health and viability, when they retire, as they inevitably will. Dr. Pentland is no spring chicken, LOL.
Yeah, the guy who served my family church for the decade when I was in high school and undergrad was no "star", just a solid, faithful, hard-working minister. We did well during his time there, too.
 
The other point about that is that congregations need NOT to have "star ministers". That sort of charismatic leadership can lead to wide swings in a congregation's health and viability, when they retire, as they inevitably will. Dr. Pentland is no spring chicken, LOL.
True, he is in his early 60's. Also, he had served a congregation in another part of the city before Hillhurst and a number of folks left that congregation to follow Rev. Pentland to Hillhurst. I agree with what you are saying as Knox United in downtown Calgary had the same minister for 38 years and when he left they kind of floundered for a couple of years before calling two ministers. They are down to one minister now due to budget problems and seem to be stabalizing.
 
OTOH, we had the same minister for 35 years, he was beloved the entire time (and is still so), has the title "minister emeritus". A new piece of his art was featured in this week's service; he takes his turn at the bible study rotation (we have an almost embarrassing wealth of "ministers": 1 minister emeritus, 4 voluntary associate ministers (although one of them, now very elderly and in poorer health, as is his wife, does little these days), and 1 licensed lay leader). Our current minister, also much beloved, although for different reasons (they have different skill sets, being different people), will probably retire from this charge, and we've had her a decade now, I think...

What might matter is that, although this church is now firmly in the City, it was on the outskirts when it was built, and the first members were largely rural folk. And as the neighbouring village churches have closed, their members have often ended up here, i) because of its proximity to the farms of Oro-Medonte, being in the East End, but also ii) the rural quality of many of the membership.
 
:cautious:

My grandad, a UCCan minister himself, held that a decade was about right for a ministry. That may be a bit short if things are going well but I saw his point when I heard this.
My Dad was a Presbyterian Minister and he moved about every 6 or 7 years. The exception was his last church where he stayed for about 11 years. I think doing new things and facing new circumstances suited Dad's personality type.
 
I think doing new things and facing new circumstances suited Dad's personality type.

And some ministers and congregations (and people) do better at a more organic, "evolution in place".... and I'm that way, personally. I like to be in the same place, facing the same problems with, hopefully, evolving tools. My family's like that. Until Dad uprooted us to here, my family's tree can all be largely traced, for several centuries, to the exact same parish in Liverpool, with a side branch in Warrington, 20 miles away.
 
And I suspect that, with the loss of the presbytery's oversight, that we will not be forced into that model again. For us, and for the interim minister, it was truly an dreadful experience. We will proceed, carefully, to "call" another minister.
 
The Unitarian Fellowship here is now minister-free, with a group called Worship Weavers (a name for the worship team/committee that was adopted during my tenure on that group) responsible for Sunday mornings. They did leave a pot in the budget for outside speakers which seems to be getting used based on my regular perusals of their newsletter.
 
Jus ease ... grapes resting there to fall under the siege and wrath of bare soles ... always looking for something to stand upon ... soul appears to need substance other that the dream world of abstract! There be Eire rising ... Aaron winds ... fabric flowing in the dark ... Nighties be ... and unseen stab! Dagger they ... make holes in the heart with frequent ongoing consequence ... blind actions due to the impact of emotions?

So struck as a myth on a page is impressed ... the story is often jus du as log and report confessed later?

Say nothing the authorities wished not to hear ... because of the tilt to not knowing ... weave a delightful chaos --- that Niche Guise ... unabashed as observed a lot!
 
Last Sunday General Secretary of the UCCAN, the Rev Michael Blair, gave the sermon at Metropolitan United. It starts at about the 44 min mark

 
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