Fourth Sunday & A Wedding

We had our fourth Sunday this week. It was the first time I was really able to relax.

Because we have the problem of a bunch of our key people starting to be out of town for the summer, we have had to pull back a bit and be a little more low key. We had started with a bang, and that was kind of necessary, but now we are simplifying. For me that makes it more enjoyable - more intimate, more relaxed. We are still fairly small so it makes sense to pull the circle in tighter and be more intimate.

It also makes it easier to plan and run. It gives me a chance to get used to things, sense the flow, and then in the fall when everyone is back, and following the seasonal flow of NYC - that the fall is the big exciting time of everything starting for the new year, we will ramp up again and do more stuff.

Also, an exciting development for me - I am going to officiate my first wedding! I was contacted through friends of a friend, and following a series of get togethers with the family and the couple, I am going to perform their wedding in late May. I'm really enjoying the process of figuring out how they want to do it and stepping into this area of being a pastor.

Minister's have a cultural role in our society, and it's interesting and enjoyable to me to begin to take the mantle of that role. Of course, I am doing everything else in the church crazy new and progressive, in terms of the role of the pastor, so its fun to kind of realize, "oh, yeah, there are just straightforward areas where I don't have to be so progressive, where I can just be a minister, and do what minister's are supposed to do".