Yesterday was one of those "pastoral duty" experiences. It was my turn to lead the afternoon worship experience at a local assisted living facility. If my tone here is less than pastoral, let me hasten to reassure that my negativity implies no denigration of the residents there, nor on the service the management of the facility provides. I deeply revere the residents in this and other care centers, and by my observation they are, at least in this particular facility, well cared for.
It's just that worship there is – and I mean this with all pastoral sensitivity – a little slice of Hell. For one thing, the location for the weekly services has been itinerant over the past few years. Once held in a lounge area removed from everyday traffic, that space was transformed into a dining room and worship was relocated to the "activity room" – read: TV room. Housed there, the worship leader's first order of business was to negotiate a temporary black out with the residents who were ensconced in front of the giant screen watching a Lawrence Welk rerun. Assuming success in that bit of diplomacy, the service could proceed with only occasional interruptions.
But now, alas, that space has morphed into the therapy room, so "worship" has moved to a "dining room", which in reality is a wide space in a hallway where tables are pushed aside to temporarily accommodate the chairs and wheelchairs of worshippers. But life, in that hallway/dining room, does not pause. Visitors and staff alike must make their way through on their way to the elevator or other parts of the building; carts are routinely and clatteringly pushed through the area with food or water or medicines onboard; and of course there are preparations for the evening meal. In the midst of the Pastoral Prayer – I'm not making this up; my source is my wife who first heard the screaching marker and then opened her eyes to identify the distraction – a staff member came in and wrote out the evening's dinner menu on the whiteboard located just beside the communion table.
"Worship" (and I use the term charitably) is clearly an afterthought here – an obligatory social activity to list among the residential amenities, but hardly an experience respected or dignified with any deference. But there is, I suppose, some benefit to those who attend. While they may not experience anything remotely reverential, they at least get to be the first to learn what's for dinner.
