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OK, I'm clearly too busy to update my blog these days. Crazy busy, crazy tired. And now crazy sick. I'm pretty certain that I no longer have a brain, because a hollow skull is the only possible explanation for the amount of mucus that I produced this morning. Buckets, I tell you. Buckets. Next week we'll be holding a class meeting to discuss chapel...attendance has been low for a while now and has become downright embarrassing lately. This Wednesday at our main community Eucharist, a liturgy that normally draws 60 to 80, we had a grand total of 36...including the altar party. A while ago a visiting ecumenical group came to Evening Prayer. There were 15 of them and 4 students, three of whom were actually conducting the liturgy. Attendance isn't the only issue. Any Trinity student training for the priesthood is on a chapel team, responsible for the liturgy for 3 or 4 weeks a term. A number of our students don't want anything to do with the rota and participate grudgingly, if at all. We have ordination-bound MDivs who refuse to even come to chapel unless they're preaching. Others will take roles only when they're going to be at Trinity anyhow...if they don't have a Tuesday class they don't come on Tuesday, and the rest of the team has to pick up the slack. Some have legitimate reasons (i.e. child care, jobs, etc.) but some just can't be bothered. The worst is when we get out of chapel and there's a group sitting in the Buttery, sipping coffee and nibbling nosh. Anyone who's looking to be a Christian leader, ordained or not, ought to want to be in church. It shouldn't be a struggle to get a group of seminarians into the pews. How will we address our congregations, how will we talk about stewardship and dedication to the church, if we're not walking the walk ourselves? We'll see how things go on Wednesday. M and I want to get student's ideas about how we can make chapel more a part of their lives. What can we change, how can we better communicate the importance? We don't want to scold (well...we do, really, but we won't) so we're hoping people will join the discussion. We'll see what happens. |
