Sunday, February 12, 2012

Color me shocked...

The church service I used to go to--y'know, the one whose celebrant I dealt with here and here--is going bye-bye.  I got the e-mail Friday.

Officially, the reasoning is:

Changes in St. Mark’s clergy leadership make it impossible to assign one priest to weekly serve that community alone.  Leadership needs such as music and A/V technology team, planning and creativity team, readers and chalice bearers, and set up teams, have challenged the resources of the worshipping community.  And, significantly, the schedule of the worship service on Sunday morning makes it “compete” with other services at St. Mark’s - a competition that helps no one.  
That, as the formatting suggests, is an actual quote from the e-mail, which goes on to explain that, after the end of Epiphany, the 11:11 CAYA service will go away, and during Lent will become a midweek "creative worship offering" which will "explor(e) the Lenten themes of journey, risk, challenge, and creativity in new ways, in new places, with new offerings of music, art and movement."  (It might be worth noting that, when I was much younger, Wednesday evening services were the more laid-back offerings.  I will go so far as to say they were the progenitor of IT/CAYA services, and far predate Rev. Wickham.)

My immediate thought, I must admit, was Huh, finally alienated all your regulars, did you? Perhaps I am flattering myself, but I do not see this as being too far from the truth.  Even before I was made unwelcome, I had noticed many of the service's founding parishioners had begun attending irregularly or not at all.

The truth about CAYA is that a handful of people ran the whole blessed thing, and though lip service was paid to involving everybody, it didn't.  No ideas were entertained unless they came from one of the three couples who ran the show.  Not exactly a recipe for success.