Crises Averted

So a little while ago I posted about two people who wanted to come see me with some concerns they had.  One of them had issues with the bulletin and the other had an issue with a new program we started for the kids called, "Letters to God."

The Letters to God person thought that we were going to respond to the questions posed by the children with an actual letter from God . . . sort of like some parents give their kids an actual letter from Santa.

In my original writing about this program to the parish, I had thought I made it clear that that was not how this was going to work, but apparently I missed the mark.  However, the first time I did this I explained to the kids, "Now, you know that God really isn't writing you back, but this is a good way for you to ask questions."  One little girl was visibly relieve to hear that God would not be answering her directly.

When I was making that explanation to the kids, it suddenly dawned on the above-mentioned person exactly what it was I was doing.  Problem solved.  But he didn't want to cancel the appointment he had made, so he came in anyway and we had a grand time telling stories about all kinds of churchy stuff.

The other person was concerned that the bulletin was too hard to follow.  Before I arrived the parish had been printing the entire service, every week, into one comprehensive bulletin.  I told the Search Team that, should I be called, that would be one thing I would change immediately.  There's no reason to invest the time and expense needed to reprint everything that's already printed in the BCP and Hymnal.  I was called and I changed it.

She came in today and we looked over Sunday's bulletin.  In talking with her, it turns out that she was only concerned with the Christmas Lessons & Carols bulletin we did.  Granted, that one was different, so I cut her some slack.  And as we looked at the regular Sunday bulletin, she could only say, "Well, this really is laid out pretty good."  Cha-ching!

All potential crises have been averted.  Life is good.  Now if only every future problem in the parish were going to be that easy to solve . . .