I don't usually do this many Tabitha. I really like worshipping at my own church. This ended up by accident...and two of the 8 that I am doing in a row are at my own church. I was also asked to do 3 other churches during the same time period. I tried to get out of a couple by suggesting other people but when the others were unavailable, it came back to me. For the last 4 weeks, I was doing a 2-point charge that is Presbyterian....happens to be my old church and her sister church. It felt like going home in a way. The really neat thing is that at one of the churches, the comments afterwards are always very specific about a fact or story or idea that I shared. In the bulletin today they said: "Thank you for giving us much to think about." Also, today, the Sunday School teacher requested that we sing the same song that we sang last week because it connected with the Sunday School lesson this week. It didn't fit my theme, but we sang it anyway, and the congregation sounded great singing this old Sunday School song: Fishers of Men (which we admitted is politically incorrect and we want to change it to Fishers of Folk).
Guest preacher today was a Jewish Rabbi from the Conservative branch of Judaism. He was an interesting speaker for sure. I even learned something new, there aren't 10 commandments there are in fact 613. Ha ha ha guess it shows I never touch the book of Leviticus with a 20 foot pole.
We are told that we cannot do more than 3 in a row at any one church. That is the only stipulation. And I broke it by doing 4 in a row at a Presbyterian church, so I'll have to inform Presbytery at my next interview. They are worried that a congregation will see a LLWL in the same capacity as a minister, rather than an occasional worship leader. We have so many churches without ministers in this area that that is a legitimate concern. Usually, the most I ever do is 2 in a row and it is at my own church where I include our holidaying minister in prayers.
