Hello, good people!
Isn’t it incredible how we are all learning how to produce church from our desks? So weird, so disorienting, and I was super sad today when I put my robe and stole in a garment bag knowing that it will be many a month before I will be wearing it with my people again.
This Sunday was to be my celebratory return to church after a sabbatical. It is the 7th anniversary of my call to my congregation. And it’s Mother’s Day and my mom died six weeks ago.
Is it any surprise that I have a huge cold sore on my face?
ANYWAY, it helps me very much to feel useful to you, so I have put together what I hope are edifying and entertaining (in a gentle teasing way) series of Bad On-Camera Ministry Angles:
THE GLORIA SWANSON
CAMERA, CAMERA, WHERE IS THE CAMERA?
THE NOSTRIL CAM
And my final in the series,
THE VON TRAPP
The Von Trapp is when you have pressed your kids or spouse into service as a worship team. The strain is palpable, the awkwardness is distracting, and people like me think that life is stressful and socially traumatic enough right now for children. Unless they’re on the payroll, let them be. We all miss our worship teams, but your family deserves their privacy, and that forced Von Trapp energy is inauthentic and upsetting. Someone like me can spot fake dialogue six miles away, and oof. If you have a child actor, put them in a theatre class. Don’t make them play themselves as a character for your ministry. And since I’m on the subject, PLEASE make sure not to make the people you live with the butt of jokes in sermons, or to use them as sermon illustrations without their non-coerced persmission. We should all have plenty of inner and external resources for preaching or giving messages right now without exploiting the suffering and confusion being experienced by children or housemates of any age (but especially children).
