Do you ever get to that point in your life when you wonder how you got so busy? Perhaps it is one single event that tips the proverbial scales and begins the avalanche of responsibilities and commitments. I know this is a common occurrence, seemingly unavoidable, especially as a budding young professional sifting through a myriad of interests to discover true passions. The essential question that each overwhelmed individual must ask themselves is what exactly are you dedicating so much time to…and is it worth it?
This past few weeks have been such a time in my life, I can even point to one single event that seems to have set off the barrage of activity: The gift of a Saxophone. I have been curious about the sax for a while and interested in trying my hand at the dynamic instrument, but with the sudden arrival of a worn and tired saxophone in a tattered case with an odor that revealed its age, so many things changed…
With our move back home we are now attending the church in our community that I attended when I was growing up. We have noticed many differences since we have returned, by far the most obvious of which is the visible lack of children and young adults that attend. We had grown accustomed to large congregations and engaging messages shared among vast amounts of our direct peers, and the traditional Sunday morning services, unchanged since my youth, were just not as fulfilling. So The Wife and I came up with a radical idea, we would create an additional service that caters to the large portion of the community that would rather experience worship through an electric guitar than an Hymnal.
Shortly after receiving the magical sax, we discovered a few other individuals who had already attempted an infusion of contemporary themes into the existing services, with less-than-enthusiastic results, we joined forces and have been jettisoned into the complex process of bringing a contemporary worship service to life. I have learned a lot about the politics and management of a church the past few weeks. We have attended meetings amongst ourselves to gather our thoughts and format proposals, attended Worship Committee meetings to present our proposals, attended Administrative Board meetings to again present our proposals, attended Trustees meetings to present more proposal for modifications to the chancel to accommodate the variety of uses we envision for the three distinct service types to coexist. We are gathering teams of people to assist in creating and managing this endeavor, we are designing a marketing campaign, and most personally exciting building a new website to represent both this new service and the church as a whole.
Beyond all this there is the looming LEED Green Associate exam I plan to take, oppressive deadlines at the office that tend to culminate at overlapping intervals demanding my presence for additional time in my cube, and publishing to this blog a few times a week. Obviously, with only so many hours in the day there are things that will begin to be weeded out, it is then that one truly discovers the difference between a passing interest and a true passion.
I enjoy blogging, it provides on opportunity to process and arrange my thoughts on a diverse range of subjects. It seems it isn’t until I force myself to write it down that I truly discover where my thoughts lie on a topic and I am able to formulate a deliverable opinion. A valuable observation in our indecisive culture.
But I still don’t know how to play the saxophone…but it is worth it!
