Is it Something I Said?

« Wonderful Wedding! | Pentecost next Sunday »

Is it Something I Said?

by Frkenny ^Pro @ 2008-05-04 – 05:31:26 pm

It cheers my heart to read the Provost's Blog, What's in Kelvin's Head, when he talks all about the wonderful services and giant increases in numbers. I so love St Mary's Cathedral, and I'm glad that things are going well there! I've just had a Sunday where both my "congregations" were down substantially in numbers. In fact the 11am saw the smallest congregation since I arrived here almost seven years ago.

Of course it's the holiday weekend, and lots of folk are away, and there's other stuff going on, but I have to articulate the despondency I often feel when it looks like a party that nobody came to!

I can look at the new faces and see that new folk are coming and staying, but not nearly in the numbers we need to survive. It's times like this that I feel it's time for someone new to come along and give this brilliant group of folk the kind of boost they so obviously need. This depressive probably isn't doing it too well just now!
Options:
Tags:
- depression
Trackback URL for "Is it Something I Said?"

Enter this code:

18 Comments on Is it Something I Said?

Hide subcomments

- chris
- http://blethers.blogspot.com
- 2008-05-04 @ 08:06:46 pm
Kenny, it's dull and dreary today. It's not the day for a depressive to be cheerful. Trust me on this one. All will be well - but don't dare quit!
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- SloshedAndVexed ^Pro
- 2008-05-05 @ 12:06:20 am
I'm sure you'll not make any sudden drastic decisions , these things go in cycles , you may get surprisingly few for a while , then astoundingly many , and , so long as your Bishop and your loyal congregation members have'nt lost faith in you then you should have faith in yourself , in God working through you in his mysterious ways , and in the future !
I hope you have a good week ahead , all the best , - Martin .
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- Maggot
- 2008-05-05 @ 09:32:34 am
I know it's hard, but try not to allow your awful depression to turn into paranoia, Kenny. It was a holiday weekend. Most of the folk who weren't there had a good reason,and even provided you with "notes from parents" as you put it. Big gaps are inevitably left by huge presences who have died; gone into homes etc. God has other plans for one or two others.
Those of us left have told you, till we are blue(or red and yellow!)in the face, that we love you. We are here. I hope you believe us. You remain magnificent in the way you take services and preach, but you hate it if we compliment you, so we're completely stymied. It's horrible having depression, but it's not all that good wishing we could help and not knowing how.
However, one thought. Do you believe it's all down to you, or do you actually believe that the One True God knows all, and is in charge of it all? Are you relying on yourself, or on Him?
In the meantime, for the umpteenth time, we love you, you muppet, and like having you around. Comprende?
Maggot
- - Frkenny ^Pro
  - http://www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news
  - 2008-05-05 @ 10:02:10 am
  I just wonder, sometimes, if my depression is coming across in such a way that people, when faced with a Sunday morning choice, prefer to go to, or do, things that are a bit cheerier. I heard out of the corner of my lug yesterday, someone talking about Revd I M Jolly! Aarrrrgh!
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink
- John Penman
- 2008-05-05 @ 12:00:58 pm
Hey, its always worrying when the nombers go "phut". There were as many in Church at Millport as there were at both services at Falkirk. You think what's gone wrong? Think who wasn't going to be there anyway. I minus-ed 8 that I knew of. It was the holiday week-end and some of my little flock candidly admit that there are Sundays when it is "golf before God". Which is why they wins the Primus's cup when they enter.

When I feel down, I always mind that wee wumman at St Nin's I used to take communion to - you remember K, the one who lost her toddler daughter to car just outside the door on Albert Drive and who for years found it too painful to step throught that same door into the Church she loved. I used to ask how she was and sometimes the answer was " John I'm at the bottom of the budgie cage!" It always lifted both of our spirits. She was also the only person I ever heard use the phrase "In the name of the wee man!" Sometimes remembering that spirit can give us just a little lift back towards the even keel.
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- Kirkepiscatoid
- http://kirkepiscatoid.blogspot.com
- 2008-05-05 @ 01:08:50 pm
Kenny, don't sweat it. As I told my vicar, "When I came to your church and stayed, I remember everything about that day, except your sermon!" The message is bigger than the messenger.

Here's a post from my blog that might cheer you up:

http://kirkepiscatoid.blogspot.com/2008/05/ascension-with-both-feet-on-ground.html
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- boaz
- 2008-05-05 @ 01:48:21 pm
Kenny, Perhaps your blog audience might suffice for a while at least. Why not post your sermons here and I'll promise to visit for worship. Perhaps others might as well.
- - Frkenny ^Pro
  - http://www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news
  - 2008-05-05 @ 02:02:07 pm
  My sermons are mostly unpublishable! I think sermons are for preaching rather than reading! When I've been tempted to put them on here, the response has been zilch anyway!
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink
- Beryl Simkins
- 2008-05-05 @ 03:29:28 pm
I wouldn't wish a crisis on anybody like we have had in the Diocese of San Joaquin in the Episcopal Church in California. However,those of us who are living through this crisis have said many times that we will never again take our church for granted. And that is so easy to do, to take one's church for granted, to believe the church will always be there while we do other things, have holidays, etc.
There are those of us in the town where I live who have been worshipping in a home because the ones who chose the Southern Cone, were in the majority, and they have the building and the prayer books and the fair linens, etc.

So the rest of us have learned how much we love the Episcopal Church and we are working hard to rebuild, and will be moving into the rented space of another church building next week because we are growing. We have new spirit for our endeavors, and everyone is a part of this rebirth, and we won't be taking anything for granted anytime soon.
- - Frkenny ^Pro
  - http://www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news
  - 2008-05-05 @ 05:21:17 pm
  My prayers are with you. Hearing what has happened to some very faithful congregations in the States has made we weep at times. I still don't understand how they can just "take" everything! Surely these are the guys who should be renting space?
  
  I'd love a ministry in the US before I retire, but I don't think they would let me in! California sounds nice!
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink
- NancyP
- 2008-05-05 @ 04:16:11 pm
Spring fever, unfortunately, and in Scotland the young (and old) man's thoughts turn to golf. I lecture to nearly empty classrooms sometimes (in USA). Don't take it personally - people just have to play hooky sometimes, particularly when the sun shines after a long winter. I prescribe an afternoon off on the next sunny non-Sunday.

And yes, sermons are for preaching, to specific live congregations.

(over here from MP's blog)
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- Caminante (Lee)
- http://www.caminantesi.blogspot.com
- 2008-05-05 @ 06:05:51 pm
I could have written the very same post word for word. I am with you, bro.
- Reply to comment
- Permalink
- kishnevi
- http://kishnevi.wordpress.com
- 2008-05-05 @ 11:29:48 pm
Remember that you are a planter of trees, and probably won't be around to see the tree flourishing and standing tall with a century of growth behind it. And when I say tree, I don't mean the congregation or the church--I mean the people who hear your sermons. You're planting seeds with them, and may never see how flourshing the resulting trees grow. Because, in the end, it's not the number of people who you get to sit and listen to your sermons--it's what the people who hear your sermons do afterwords. And besides, on a wonderful spring day, why shouldn't a person decide to look for God in nature instead of God in church?
- - SloshedAndVexed ^Pro
  - 2008-05-11 @ 09:53:54 pm
  Wise words indeed !
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink
- Grace
- 2008-05-06 @ 01:36:34 am
Fr. Kenny,

Bless you that you care for folks spiritually, and that it matters to you if they are actually there in church. I've been in congregations where I"m sure I would have never been missed.

Don't give up. God uses us no matter what. Remember that His strength is made perfect in weakness.

I would feel blessed to have a caring priest like you.

Keep the faith!
- - Frkenny ^Pro
  - http://www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news
  - 2008-05-06 @ 09:21:12 am
  Thanks, Grace. You sound like someone who deserves to be blessed!
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink
- Lois Keen
- http://ramblingswithlois.blogspot.com
- 2008-05-06 @ 01:53:48 am
Dear Kenny,

Yesterday we had a special program during worship, and only 41 people showed up. AND, it being the U.S.A., there was no holiday weekend to account for it. AND the weather was dismal, until later in the afternoon, so I can't blame golf.

I do know what it means to be trying to be God's midwife in making a congregation viable again. We've been sloppy, a lot of us Episcopalians. We bring someone to church with us, on average, once every 35&1/2 years; to bring back the people who left over the last ten years I'd have to open up the graves and prop the bones up in the pews; people moved away; people changed churches (part of our consumerist culture seeping into the church); but we haven't replaced the dead, or those moving away.

Like your congregation, judging by the one comment above, the people I serve are happy, content. But with 41 on a Sunday when a special program was planned is really disheartening and doesn't bode well for viability. Still, what else can we do but hang in there. Maybe the contentment of our congregations will relay itself out of the building and into their lives, and people will start to be infected by it. Who knows. I tend to be a depressive about these things, too, so it's strange for me to write that last sentence. May it be so for us both.
Cheers,
Lois Keen
- - Frkenny ^Pro
  - http://www.staugustinesdumbarton.co.uk/news
  - 2008-05-06 @ 09:29:13 am
  Thanks Lois! Your comment, and those of others, including the one from a member as you noticed, really helped me get up and going yesterday, and the RW had a really good birthday as a result. I was actually blessed by decent numbers at Easter, but apart from a triple baptism on Low Sunday, it's been downhill ever since. That has mirrored itself in my own descent into depression, and I think I was musing that these facts may be inter-related. Probably not!
  
  Looking forward to Sunday! It's got to be better!
  - Reply to comment
  - Permalink