… or the prayer, or the Charge to the Minister, or the Charge To the Congregation at someone’s ordination or installation.
First of all, for the love of tradition and aesthetics and integrity, please do not just feel that you can make up the elements of these liturgies! Find out what a Charge to the Minister is, and what it is not.
It is not a wedding toast.
It is not a Comedy Central roast done clergy-style.
It is not an opportunity for you to wax rhapsodic about your own ministry.
Find out what your liturgical job is and do that. Ask trusted mentors. Research in your denominational archives. Learn what the tradition is, and prepare your role and only that.
Do the thing you were asked to do, and not what you were not asked to do.
If you were asked to give the prayer, do not grab the opportunity at the pulpit to do a 10-minute homily as a lead-in to the prayer. You weren’t asked to give the sermon, so don’t give one. Give a prayer and sit down. I was at an ordination recently where the praying guest snuck in a full homily before his prayer and I blame him and no one else for how hangry I got.
Okay. What else?
Prepare your beginning, your middle and your end. Know how you’re going to wrap up your piece of spoken word or ritual and get off the stage. If you don’t have a clear sense of where to go after your bit is over, ask the marshal.
Have you ever been in the congregation or on the chancel while someone allowed the energy to drop from a beautiful flowing movement to an awkward shuffling? If you watch carefully you can identify the very moment where a confident delivery becomes a tentative conclusion. Stick the landing! Stick the landing!
In conclusion, know what your role is in the service and prepare that. Just do that thing, not any of the other things.
Dear Lord, yes. I don’t know why we think that just because our excess words might be interesting/deep/touching, we are not making others suffer by contributing to the 3-hour bloat. Another fun tip: If you are giving a prayer, and there’s someone else assigned to give a prayer at a different time in the service, check in with them beforehand. A dear friend was giving the opening prayer for an ordination, and I sat in mute horror as I heard the very words that were resting in the elegant binder on my lap. We had both asked Mr. Google and found the same lovely prayer. I made up something not nearly as smooth and elegant on the spot. And then grabbed her afterwards and said, OMIGOD you have to see this… So check in. Or, always make sure you give the first prayer.
AMEN! Yes. My Installation service is coming up (hooray!), and I’d like it to be one hour, and I’m considering alerting the participants that at each quarter hour mark we should be at a certain place in the service, and if not, everyone needs to adjust their remarks accordingly to make up the time. After awhile, so many words by so many people all start to run into each other and people get tired!
Thank you for this…so very timely and appropriate.
I love that phrase “Stick the landing”.
It is disheartening that there are clergy who need these reminders but since there are, bless you, PB, for offering them. Amen and amen to them all.