WORSHIP VISITS

One of the peculiar challenges of being at home during my sabbatical is figuring out where to worship on Sunday. I suppose that since I don't have to lead worship, I could just stay home on the Sundays when I am not away from home. After all, many church members choose that option quite regularly, even when they are not "on sabbatical."

But I saw the weekend as an opportunity to visit other churches, so I went to Trinity, Rocky Point for their Saturday night service, and then on Sunday I visited St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church in Selden before finally visiting the 11:15 service at Hope.

I enjoyed every service, especially because they were all different from each other. Trinity's service was a low-key contemporary service led by Pastor Kolbo. He preached about Confirmation because they were having confirmation on Sunday at Trinity.

St. Cuthbert has not had its own priest for ten years, so their mass was led by Father John Madden, the former Archdeacon for the Diocese of Long Island. He is one of three retired priests who come to preside at the church week after week. Since someone welcomed me, I told her who I was, and I was formally welcomed during the mass by the congregation. Later on I spoke with their Senior Warden about Shared Ministry, and she was very excited because their Vestry was going to be discussing their discernment exercise this week and one of their goals for this year is to develop relationships with other churches. I invited them to send their children to our summer camps and our VBS and Drama Camp as well.

My visit to Hope was also very good. I got there just before the service began because I was coming from St. Cuthbert's. Pastor James Smith from Wagner College was presiding and preaching, and I was eager to welcome him to Hope since he grew up in Selden and graduated from Newfield High School with several of our younger church members.

On June 20 I will fly to Minneapolis-St. Paul where I will stay at Luther Seminary, meet with some people there and attend a celebration at St. Mark's (Episcopal) Cathedral on the 23rd before heading north to accompany Sandi Holmberg from the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota who will bring me to some Total Ministry parishes before I go to the Ministry Summit in Little Falls, MN. My final Sunday visit will be in Hastings, MN before flying home on June 30th.

I hope that everyone will make good use of these weekend worship visits to our church and benefit from the preachers who come to Hope, and I hope many will be around when I'm back on July 14th, the 40th anniversary of my first worship service as a pastor.