Getting to church
15/10/23 01:40
When our children were in elementary school, one of their complaints about our family life was that on Sundays we were always the first to arrive at church and the last to leave. They were active participants in church, but they didn’t want the entire morning and part of the afternoon devoted to church activities every Sunday. At the time we lived about a mile from the church and when they were allowed to ride their bikes to and from church it was a great liberation for them to be able to ride home before we were ready to leave our church responsibilities. Not long afterward we moved to a new congregation. This time our house was ten miles from the church. They were once again stuck with their parents’ schedule on Sunday mornings. About a year later or son earned his driver’s license and once again they felt the liberation of being able to leave the church after worship.
Susan and I have worked together for the same congregations for all of our careers. There was a time when we were students and I interned at a church where she did not have responsibilities for leadership and another brief period of time when she was working part-time for a second congregation, but for most of the 44 years of our active careers, we worked together. In our first call of seven years we served two congregations. One was next door to the parsonage where we lived. We could walk back and forth. The other congregation was 16 miles away. We only had one car when we started that job and our Sunday morning routine was usually to ride together to the distant church and ride back to our home for the second service. During the summers, the congregations switched to worshipping at the same time and once of us went to one congregation and the other to the second congregation, switching congregations each week. By the end of our seven years in that call we had obtained a second car and occasionally we would be going in different directions, but we rarely ended up with both cars at the distant church at the same time.
Once we moved to our second call - the one where we lived a mile from the church - we quickly became a two-car family at church. We begin to arrive at different times in different vehicles. That practice persisted for the next 35 years of our lives. We used to say that we could share nearly everything. We could live in the same house, share the same toothpaste tube, eat our meals together, work together, and share family life. However, we needed two cars to get to church on Sunday mornings. When we added a third car when our children were young adults, it was common for us to have three cars in the church parking lot for Sunday worship. We needed to come and go at different times.
That changed when we retired. When we first retired, the Covid Pandemic meant that we were not physically present at worship. We worshipped from home over our computer. We even went through the ceremony of joining the congregation where we currently are members online. When we started a two-year interim at that church we were still living in Mount Vernon, so we had a 30 mile one way commute. We always rode together and for the first time in a long time we rode together to and from church. After a couple of months, we purchased the home where we now live, which is closer. Still the 19 miles to the church is enough and our schedules were close enough to the same that we nearly always rode to and from church together. There were only a few occasions when for some reason we ended up with both of our vehicles at church. The commute was a pleasant time to talk and visit about all kinds of things from family life to work concerns to making meal plans and grocery lists.
Then we retired once again. For the last couple of months we have worshiped in quite a few different congregations, making an outing of Sunday mornings to explore other congregations while creating a bit of distance from our work relationship with the church where we are members. We have also taken the opportunity of retirement to make a couple of trips, including our recent visit to South Carolina. The practice of traveling to worship together was natural and fun during this time.
Today we are returning to what may become a new schedule of church participation for us. We are returning to regular worship at the congregation where we are members and where we served as Interim Ministers of Faith Formation for two years. Now, however, we do not have an office at the church and we do not have official responsibilities. So it seemed at first that it would be natural for us to continue driving to and from the church together in the same car. That is our plan for this morning, but I can see a problem with that plan. I need to arrive at the church for an 8:30 am choir rehearsal. Worship is at 10 am. Then I have a bell choir rehearsal at 11:15, which usually lasts an hour or a bit longer. That means that a typical Sunday morning for me will be to arrive at the church at 8:30 am and stay for four hours until 12:30 pm. Susan, however, is not singing in the choir and she is not ringing with the bell choir. So if we ride together she has a lot of down time waiting for me. She can go to the church library and read. She can sit in the fellowship hall and visit with friends after worship. But the extended time commitment is a stretch for her. In addition, there will be some Sundays when the bell choir will ring at a second service at 2:30 pm. Our church building is also home to a United Methodist Congregation and our bell choir is a shared group that generally rings for both congregations when we ring in worship.
It isn’t hard for me to imagine that we might end up needing two cars for our Sunday morning routine once again. Right now this is all new to us and we are trying to figure out what works for us. It might end up that I drop the vocal choir for a while. I didn’t sing in the vocal choir during the time we served as interim ministers because I had other responsibilities before worship. Dropping that would shorten our Sunday morning commitments. We just don’t know for sure how it will work out.
It seems that retirement doesn’t end the need for planning. It may not even end the need for two vehicles for us.
Susan and I have worked together for the same congregations for all of our careers. There was a time when we were students and I interned at a church where she did not have responsibilities for leadership and another brief period of time when she was working part-time for a second congregation, but for most of the 44 years of our active careers, we worked together. In our first call of seven years we served two congregations. One was next door to the parsonage where we lived. We could walk back and forth. The other congregation was 16 miles away. We only had one car when we started that job and our Sunday morning routine was usually to ride together to the distant church and ride back to our home for the second service. During the summers, the congregations switched to worshipping at the same time and once of us went to one congregation and the other to the second congregation, switching congregations each week. By the end of our seven years in that call we had obtained a second car and occasionally we would be going in different directions, but we rarely ended up with both cars at the distant church at the same time.
Once we moved to our second call - the one where we lived a mile from the church - we quickly became a two-car family at church. We begin to arrive at different times in different vehicles. That practice persisted for the next 35 years of our lives. We used to say that we could share nearly everything. We could live in the same house, share the same toothpaste tube, eat our meals together, work together, and share family life. However, we needed two cars to get to church on Sunday mornings. When we added a third car when our children were young adults, it was common for us to have three cars in the church parking lot for Sunday worship. We needed to come and go at different times.
That changed when we retired. When we first retired, the Covid Pandemic meant that we were not physically present at worship. We worshipped from home over our computer. We even went through the ceremony of joining the congregation where we currently are members online. When we started a two-year interim at that church we were still living in Mount Vernon, so we had a 30 mile one way commute. We always rode together and for the first time in a long time we rode together to and from church. After a couple of months, we purchased the home where we now live, which is closer. Still the 19 miles to the church is enough and our schedules were close enough to the same that we nearly always rode to and from church together. There were only a few occasions when for some reason we ended up with both of our vehicles at church. The commute was a pleasant time to talk and visit about all kinds of things from family life to work concerns to making meal plans and grocery lists.
Then we retired once again. For the last couple of months we have worshiped in quite a few different congregations, making an outing of Sunday mornings to explore other congregations while creating a bit of distance from our work relationship with the church where we are members. We have also taken the opportunity of retirement to make a couple of trips, including our recent visit to South Carolina. The practice of traveling to worship together was natural and fun during this time.
Today we are returning to what may become a new schedule of church participation for us. We are returning to regular worship at the congregation where we are members and where we served as Interim Ministers of Faith Formation for two years. Now, however, we do not have an office at the church and we do not have official responsibilities. So it seemed at first that it would be natural for us to continue driving to and from the church together in the same car. That is our plan for this morning, but I can see a problem with that plan. I need to arrive at the church for an 8:30 am choir rehearsal. Worship is at 10 am. Then I have a bell choir rehearsal at 11:15, which usually lasts an hour or a bit longer. That means that a typical Sunday morning for me will be to arrive at the church at 8:30 am and stay for four hours until 12:30 pm. Susan, however, is not singing in the choir and she is not ringing with the bell choir. So if we ride together she has a lot of down time waiting for me. She can go to the church library and read. She can sit in the fellowship hall and visit with friends after worship. But the extended time commitment is a stretch for her. In addition, there will be some Sundays when the bell choir will ring at a second service at 2:30 pm. Our church building is also home to a United Methodist Congregation and our bell choir is a shared group that generally rings for both congregations when we ring in worship.
It isn’t hard for me to imagine that we might end up needing two cars for our Sunday morning routine once again. Right now this is all new to us and we are trying to figure out what works for us. It might end up that I drop the vocal choir for a while. I didn’t sing in the vocal choir during the time we served as interim ministers because I had other responsibilities before worship. Dropping that would shorten our Sunday morning commitments. We just don’t know for sure how it will work out.
It seems that retirement doesn’t end the need for planning. It may not even end the need for two vehicles for us.
