From Connie

This week the Pastor is speeking about service.

He spoke about being the body of Christ in the world, not just in word, but in deed. He asked us to look at our lives and see where God is calling us to serve.

During the week I answer phones. I sit at a desk, and when someone calls I transfer them or take a message, schedule appointments, talk to clients, doctors, dentists, vets, teachers of my boss' kids. I am a typical secretary and I love my job. I get to interact with people, and I get time to myself. I have space on the wall for framed pictures of my family: sisters, brothers, neices, nephews, my beloved parents. I enjoy eating my chicken salad sandiwches on my lunch break and listening to music.

But my life wasn't always that simple. When I first graduated from college with a degree in Journalism I found myself drawn back into the church I had grown up in. There were so many teenagers and no one to lead them, not one person willing to spend time with them or tell them they were loved. So I put on hold my dreams of pursuing my master's, or taking up that internship at the New York Times, and I settled into my role as Youth Pastor at my church.

I had never had such intense connections with kids younger than me; they were so full of life, so angsty, passionate, so ready to change the world starting with the church. So we pursued those dreams and started to make changes...and started to make some people very angry and uncomfortable. We weren't interested in the walls of the church, we wanted to go beyond, to serve the way that Jesus did. It wasn't long before I was asked to leave, none too kindly for my "worldy" ideas of ministry. I left, disillusioned and downhearted. Two months later I took the job that I've had now for 10 years.

Sometimes I think I gave up too easy, settled into life the way everyone seems to do. What if I had fought for truth? Am I a coward? Is it too late to change the world?

From Alex

Being here is an obligation I've just come to live with. My parents raised me in the church, and my wife still expects me to go. Whenever I skip out for a reason other than deathly illness, I don't hear the end of it until the next week when I put on my tie, and sometimes even that doesn't silence it. It's a routine. Like turning on the coffee pot when I first walk in the kitchen. Listening to the sermon, I take detailed notes. I can pretty much set up the outline exactly like Pastor has it written in his notes without ever having seen them. I know the ways he builds to a climax, three sets of threes buried in there, and the way he slides through a long winded denouement. My notes from a Sunday morning look so similar to my neat, dated, ordered, color-coded college notes that you really can't tell the difference.

God, I am so bored with my life. I am so bored with this routine. Nothing satisfies me anymore. Nothing makes me happy.

From Ms. Leela

Oh Lord, my back is achin', been sitting in this pew too long, wish they'd go ahead and get the new padding they been talking about getting for years. In this church you have to form a committee to discuss the formation of a committee to decide who will be on the committee that elects the committee to make a decision. Whereas, I'm all about lets just get it done, already. Now I see your brains turning, you're already talking about me in your mind, that grumpy old lady, but this attitude, sometimes it's all I've got.

Sometimes I just get so tired of sitting here listening! Sure, Pastor's speaking a great sermon, and then we get to read all about it in Alex's "witty" rendition, but sometimes I think this whole business is just like the committee chain of command. We all expect someone else to start the action. No one wants to start it. Well gal' darn it, I... well, I'm just about fed up with it. I just don't want to be the first one to get up and say something.