Sunday is Pop Quiz Day

Moving from Colorado Springs to Fowler has been adventure. All in all, the transition from Associate Pastor to Pastor of a Small Church has been an enjoyable journey. The people are kind. The church adores the baby. It has been willing to try some new things. I have been blessed.

One of the challenges with being in Fowler though has been the prayer times. I was looking forward to prayer time being a time of open sharing of prayer requests. I missed that from Montana after I lived in the Springs. I like the informality of our prayer time.

What I struggle with in regard to the prayer time is that many Sundays it ends up feeling like a pop quiz time, otherwise known as a game of "stump the pastor". What does this mean? It means that nearly every Sunday I have a question come out of left field that I have to answer:

"Do we still have missionaries in Japan?"

"Do we have _____________s address?"

"How is ________________ doing?(__________ left the church 2 years ago)"

"When is ____________ coming home?"

"What kind of surgery is it?"

Maybe you would think most of these questions during prayer time are easy. They are not. People on our prayer lists are often friends of members, and people I have never met. If people have moved miles away to a nursing home out of town or left the church, I don't keep as good of tabs on them. People even in the church can be tight-lipped about their maladies. And sometimes people don't want to share that they are having hernia surgery, a hysterectomy, or surgery on their rectum.

Furthermore, Saturday is often my day for family and sermon time. It is less often my time to keep in touch with the ill, or work to get up to date on when someone is coming home who went into the hospital on Thursday.

Most people are asking these questions out of kindness and respect. They figure if anyone should know, it would be me. It still feels like a pop quiz. On the other hand, there are people in the congregation who do enjoy a little game of "stump the pastor" during prayer time. You can tell by the way the question is asked. And I often fail like I barely pass this test.