Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Brainstorms?

I had a terrific (in the sense of terrifying) migraine last night--the worst I've had in years. I had to resort to Imitrex(R) and going to sleep; then woke up two hours later with the pain gone but not the nausea. Ugh.

Woke up feeling like a new person this morning though--there's a kind of relief and euphoria when that pain finally goes away. I feel energized and excited about getting things done.

And in working on preparing the order of service for Sunday, I came across something on my favourite preaching bulletin board (desperatepreacher.com). One of the other desperate preachers mentioned something he had done in the past--taking a variety of translations and inserting one in each of the bulletins. During announcements, the congregation was informed that they were doing the Scripure reading as a congregation, and that they might not have exactly the same reading as the person next to them, but that they should keep on reading. And behold--many voices, saying all different things, but one message. A sort of Pentecost, indeed.

I'm going to put that into practice, with one change--we have a couple of Francophones and a German-speaker (me), so I've got a couple of French translations and a German one, just to add a bit more spice.

In the past, I've used different languages for different parts of the Scripture--we started out and ended in English, but also heard German, French and Spanish along the way. One year I did the invocation in Hebrew (and wasn't that tricky, since I've never studied Hebrew? Luckily I found a phonetic transliteration and a translation...).

We're also using a new hymn, by Brian Wren-- "Source of All, Sustaining Spirit." Well, new to us, at any rate!

And I think I will shock them once again and wear a red dress.

What are you doing for Pentecost?



Pentecost

Quilt, Linda Schmidt

7 comments:

Jody Harrington said...

Our church's tradition is that EVERYONE wears red to church on Pentecost and then we have a big birthday cake afterwards.

Rainbow Pastor said...

I've done that, too, QG!

And we will now have a Spanish version and possibly a Russian one as well!

Sue said...

Wow. Great idea!!!

revhipchick said...

that is terrific! we do the wear red and eat b-day cake as well. E wants 99 red balloons this weekend...and something about 99 luft balloons on the banner...we'll see how that goes. of course, i'm not sure that anyone in the congregation will be young or old enough to get it!

thanks for sharing a terrific idea!

Sally said...

what a great idea, I'll dig out something red, hadn't really thought of it but what an impact if everyone wore it!

love the quilt

Rainbow Pastor said...

I had forgotten, but a friend's church used red geraniums all over the chancel. Justlike people buy poinsettias at Christmas and lilies at Easter, they bought the geraniums, and the funds went to scholarships, which is appropriate in June.

Another church draped red tulle aver everything that wasn't moving. Quite a nice effect!

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