This weekend is the parish retreat. Almost 100 St. Albanites will be traveling to Massanetta Springs, VA for a weekend away full of fellowship, community, learning, and fun. I am positive we will have a wonderful time.
On Sunday morning, Rev. Jim Quigley and I will be at the morning services trying something a little different, a little unique and certainly something new. In fact, I’ve never heard of another church doing this: BOTH Jim and I will preach on Sunday morning.
Rest easy: there WON’T be a double-length sermon (although that WOULD be incentive next year for people to go on the parish retreat I’d imagine!). Instead we are going to employ strict time keeping measures to ensure that we stay right around 12 minutes in total for our joint sermon. We have crafted a series of three questions that touch on what each passage reveals about God, our relationship with God and to what action God may be calling the church. Jim will explore the Exodus reading by answering these three questions and I will do the same with the gospel passage.
One of the good things about the preaching at St. Alban’s is that each of the clergy have very unique and distinctive preaching styles and ways of interpreting the scriptures. We are blessed with a number of preachers from first-time to much more seasoned and experienced.
Most Sundays we hear one voice, one preacher’s point of view and interpretation of the lectionary readings of the day. This experiment in preaching may turn out to be outstanding; it may totally flop, but our hope is that by offering two different voices, points of view, and answers to the same questions for this set of readings we will provide a different way of experiencing how God is alive and active in our lives.
With God’s Peace and Blessing,
The Daily Cup 