Now we have conducted our church service examination. Five ordinands in my group, five church services. Not open to the public, just for us ordinands, our musician and our teacher. But independently planned and performed.
Besides having turned a page in my binder the wrong way – thus singing the wrong liturgical song and being interrupted by the musician and having to start over with the correct song – everything went just fine. I did everything I should do, remembered every part of the service (since I had every little word neatly written down in said binder) and kept my composure throughout the whole service.
My designed parish consisted of a residential area, with plenty of young people assisting in the children’s and youth’s activities. The Old Testament reading recorded the story about David and Goliath. This inspired me to letting a children’s choir sing a song about – ta daaa: David and Goliath, while a group of confirmands acted out the song as a silent drama. Since there were so many young assistants in the parish, I gave twelve of them different assignments during the service. It sure was a hard task to coordinate all this!
Or, well, in reality, we had to be imagine both children’s choire and confirmands. And the twelve young assistants transformed into three of my class mates. But in my head I saw them all performing their respective tasks throughout the service.
So, now I am an approved (but not yet ordained) church service leader. Baptismal service – check! Funeral service – check! Church service – check! Next, and last – wedding service, in April.
By the way, my sermon yesterday was rather liked by my ’congregation’. If you want, you can read it here (unfortunately, in Swedish only): Predikan tredje söndagen i fastan 2018