Dear Beloved Friends,
As a pastor’s kid, or PK as we call ourselves, there are sometimes roles that we take on that are not necessarily things that we want nor expect. Our church choir director was intent on having a children’s Christmas musical every year, so guess who ended up in the children’s Christmas music every year. That’s right, me.
One year remains seared in my mind not for the performance itself but for the horror I experienced at the dress rehearsal. By this time, I’m ten years old and have graduated to one of the lead parts. That means I have lines. That means I have a solo. That means I have a microphone. On this dress rehearsal day I happened to be mic’d up but needed to use the restroom. No one warned me that the microphone was still on and unmuted, so the entire sanctuary not only heard me singing a sweet little song of my own creation but also heard the flush of the toilet. I came back to raucous laughter. I was mortified! Embarrassed beyond belief, I swore then and there never to be in another church musical. Out of my embarrassment I made a hasty decision.
This week, we’ll continue in our six-week sermon series “All the Feels” with guest preacher and conference co-lay leader Derrick Scott, III preaching on shame and guilt. In the coming weeks, we’ll hear more about what we do with feelings like embarrassment, rage, apathy (what we call “blah”) and doom and gloom. Why are we talking about these? Because many of these emotions might be taking the lead in your life right now. You might be wondering how we are even to approach these emotions as we live out our Christian faith.
Even though all of these emotions are a part of our human experience, they can often lead us to make negative decisions, to lash out at others, and to disconnect from our surroundings. These are things that we need to talk about. But we know that the grace of God goes before us in all things, and that we are always responding to that grace. Therefore, we have opportunities to reflect and change how we let our emotions guide our actions. When we preach about our negative emotions inevitably the good news is in the fruit that can be borne from the alternate option, the positive emotions we turn toward. I hope you will join us during this series in thoughtful reflection of what you are feeling and how those feelings show up daily in your life.
With Love and Peace,
Pastor Rachel
P.S. And yes, to this day, I still check to see that my microphone is muted before using the restroom.
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