Preaching guest

After a good night's sleep, I went in to Holy Trinity Church for the Sung Eucharist, and once more met several more people I hadn't seen in the summer. I took note of the Eucharist setting by Peter Aston, which is quite singable and has some uplifting qualities, superior to much of the banale dated material that gives me such grief in parish services I attend back in Cardiff. I met Joelle Gouel, a French liturgiologist with a passion for the Anglican musical and pastoral, who worships occasionally at HTC. I haven't seen her for ten years. These days she struggles to find a home in her own church, which apparently suffers from the same poverty of taste and lack of inspiration as many UK churches do when it comes to music to lift up the heart to.

I don't like to think of myself as a liturgical music snob, but I have struggled since leaving St John's, where a real effort was made to offer music that inspired and connected worshippers to the theme of the day, even if I didn't find it all to my personal taste. It's not difficult to do some things simply and beautifully and get everyone joining in, if the musical offering has real spiritual qualities. With the passing of time I realise how much popular church music may fail to inspire even though it stirs the emotions. It can be the way it's being performed, or it can be that the music is intrinsically dull, aiming at sentiment rather than the soul. What a valuable role taken for granted is played by the musical leadership of any church.

After the Eucharist I went to the airport to pick up a hire car that will give me some freedom of movement around the pays Vaudois in the coming week. Very nervous of this very modern machine, I drove over to Chambésy for a lunch party with church people given by old friend Yvette Milosevic, and then went on to Divonne to rendezvous with Julia and prepare for the afternoon service at Gingins. 

It was evening prayer, including the blessing of the civil marriage of an older couple who are among the leadership of the congregation's music group. It was my task to preach to the occasion. After pondering on this during the past week, the opportunity came to write down my thoughts yesterday with an hour in hand waiting for the plane in the departure zone. I don't preach so often these days, and was delighted that the complete thing came out of my head and into my note book with such ease. I also enjoyed preaching it, and was glad that it was well received, since I'd come from Cardiff for this purpose amongst others. There was a lovely festive atmosphere, more re-unions with old friends, and a party in the church meeting place afterwards. I've been enlisted to join a bible study group of Tuesday.  That should be fun.

I got home just as dark descended. As we were about to sup, Keith Dale had a call he'd been expecting to say that his nonogenarian granny had died, which had us talking at table about the ancients and elders who had played valuable memorable parts in our lives. For me, several of them were people I met and pastored here in Geneva. I'm so glad that I still have the opportunities to return, remember them, and give something back.