Marking the Days

Today is March 9; exactly one month to the day before Ascension Church's public launch. It's hard to believe that this church, which was merely a concept known as the Forest Hills Church Plant when I came on the scene, is actually coming to fruition. During our pre-launch stage, which began at the end of October, and our broadening stage since January 15, we have slowly developed our worship services in light of the big day on Palm Sunday.

This past week, we finally introduced our weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper. Michael did a great job of incorporating the Supper into our order of worship, but we had to drop one hymn near the end because the service ran quite long. Our keyboardist (who lives in Manhattan) and bass player (who lives in Brooklyn) each had commitments after our service to which they had to rush and our originally-planned music line-up would have made each of them quite late to these appointments. As much as I like a lot of music in the service, we need to keep in mind how the Lord's Supper lengthens the service.

I had an opportunity to see a dramatic presentation of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters this past Saturday throuth The Fellowship for the Performing Arts. It was superb. If any of you are planning to be in New York City before the end of April, I would highly recommend it to you. I wasn't sure how it would play out on stage, but Max McLean is an outstanding performer and brilliantly portrayed Screwtape in all his brooding and devious glory. We are currently attempting to reserve some tickets for later this month so several people from Ascension Church will have an opportunity to see it. Between taking the youth to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, our recent church outreach on the topic of love (using Lewis' model from his book, The Four Loves), and this performance, we've been heavy on the C.S. Lewis lately. That's okay. You know, his friends called him Jack.

Last week Michael, practical joker that he is, convinced me that we were going to conduct a funeral for a dog belonging to an individual in our church. He told me that it would give me an opportunity to practice in the event of a real funeral. I wrote a eulogy featuring a fond recollection of the dog based on my brief encounter with him several weeks ago. I also included some carefully worded encouragements for the dog's owner, making sure I offered real comfort without making theological leaps with regard to the dog itself.

Telling me that his son needed to practice using his newly purchased video recorder, Michael had the camera rolling as I rehearsed the eulogy before the "service." This was followed up by a battery of questions from Michael about the souls and afterlife of pets. He said that it's possible that I may face such questions on the floor of Presbytery when I stand before them for ordination. I, of course, believed this, having been to Presbytery meetings both here and in Mississippi and seen some bizarre questions asked of ministry canditates. Eventually, I was informed that this was a joke. Michael now refers to me as the pastor of pets at Ascension Church. Just call me Rev. Doolittle.

Seriously though, we have much going on at Ascension Church and we covet your prayers greatly. Take care for now and God-bless.