I Drunk-Dialed God Today

My timing was perfect. Just one post after I'm criticizing other people's public prayers, I have the opportunity to offer some of my own.

The church where I am a member asks their membership to read the lessons (that role is called the "lector", for those of you outside the church world) and someone to offer up prayers for the church (that's called the "prayer", which is a little more intuitive). Sometime in the past year, the "Prayer" role has become a full-fledged "Assisting Minister" role (which mainly involves holding the book for the presiding pastor and a couple of additiona lines. A couple of times per year I will assist with a worship. I'm pretty good at it, and it can be fun.

However, the prayers are still a part of that role. They expect me to write the prayers. They mail me stuff with ideas and suggestions, but I'm the one who puts the words together. I've been procrastinating this job for about a week. There has been too much other stuff to occupy my mind.

Then yesterday (Saturday) came. We threw a party at our house. Lots of glögg is served (a Swedish spice wine. Very good. A whole separate post should be dedicated to this drink). The party ended, and I realized that I still hadn't written the prayers. So I sat down at my computer, still a little tipsy, and pounded out some prayers.

This morning, I got up at 6:00 to prepare for the early service. I had to wake up my sister and her husband to get to the computer. Then I got my stuff and ended up at the church in a matter of a few minutes. Then I looked at the prayers that I had written. Apparently, I wasn't as witty as I thought I was the night before. I did some editing and they went OK.

After my concerns with the other prayers I listed in the last post, one could ask if reciting bad prayers in a public worship essentially drags a few hundred people into my drunk-dial with God.