A Clerical Holy Week

It has been my experience that few lay people (although I have encountered some wonderful exceptions to the rule) have a good sense for what is entailed in the preparation and execution of Holy Week for clergy. So here it is.

My Holy week really began on the last Wednesday of Lent, with a visit from the synodical bishop. It was a wonderful visit, but required coordinating our lay leadership to be able to come and meet with the bishop prior to our early Lenten service, and still preparing a sermon for the late Lenten service (the bish was only there for one service). That last week of Lent continued with a funeral on Friday.

Sunday was Palm Sunday, which we made a big deal of this year. A procession, especially involving the children, a multi-part reading of the passion narrative, and different liturgies (orders of service) for each service that morning.

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are two of the most important services of the church year - they are also two of the hardest to put together liturgically. There is a balancing act between the importance of the services in the life of the church, and the reality of the low attendance on those days, and the length of the services. They are also two of the harder services to preach every year.

The rest of Friday and Saturday are usually spent at the church - fine tuning the services, helping with the arrangement of the sanctuary, etc, etc.

Sunday begins before the sun rises. We used a liturgy that I crafted which combines elements of the festival Easter Sunday service with the Easter Vigil. Again, it is a balancing act. At St John, the early Easter service is essentially thought of as a festival service, but the Vigil is too important to entirely neglect. At the late service, we pulled out all the stops, with some wonderfully uplifting music.

Again, Easter Sunday is notoriously difficult to preach. You have at least three audiences: (1) Your regular attendanders, who are looking for a conclusion to Thursday and Friday, (2) The irregulars, who come every few Sundays and are looking for somethign set in the broader context of our congregational life, and (3) the Christmas and Easter crowd and visitors, who have no context in the rest of Holy Week, or even Lent.

In total, for those ten days:
* 6 Sermons preached
* 8 different liturgies and bulletins to plan
* Helping to arrange the church
* Helping to coordinate the music with the liturgy
* The prayerful preparation to get into the right mindset for each service
* Holy Week visits to shut-ins
* Sending out my pastor's easter letter
* Planning advertising and promotion

Holy Week is, in the life of the church, the foundation of what it means for us to be the church. It is for your clergy a spiritual, emotional, and physical marathon.