Saturday, August 18, 2007

Interview, part 1

Well, today went really well. I'm here in lovely Coastal Atlantic State, visiting with Church Much Closer to the In-Laws this weekend. After my plane from home was delayed for two hours and then sitting on the tarmac in World's Busiest Airport waiting for our turn to take off, all said and done, I got into my hotel at... wait for it... 1:30a.m. And of course, I am not one of those people who sleep well in a new place the first night. They graciously turned our breakfast meeting into an early lunch (the PNC chair was the one who picked me up at the airport, so we were agreed on that) and then we drove around ('we' is me and three committee members) so I could see the area. I was worried about being in a car with three strangers for that length of time, but never once was I ill at ease, they were great. Then I did get to take a nap before dinner and they had a potluck with the committee and a tour of the church itself and then, of course, the questions. That went really well. I learned about the ghosts of pastors past, lots of the history, what sort of work they've done with presbytery, etc. I think we were all really comfortable with each other, and able to be honest about expectations.
I just hope that all goes well tomorrow. The sermon, not so worried about, children's sermon, whole other story. As a rule, I don't like them. Most of them are done poorly, that almost certainly includes mine. Plus, these aren't really children in the sense that most children's sermons are directed at the elementary crowd, these are 5-8th graders. Yikes! Not the age I'm most comfortable with, or at least not one I've dealt with much. I don't want to talk down to them, but I want to get the message across in an understandable way. Cross your fingers for me. Oh yeah, and some of those prayer things would be nice, too.

1 comment:

Teri said...

5th to 8th grade????
We tell kids not to come once they hit 6th grade (unless I ask them specifically, which happens occasionally). I don't know what I would do with them if I had all middle schoolers.

Have fun tomorrow!