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Whenever two or three are gathered in my name...there will be second-guessing of TheRev's decisions

I haven't been to church very much this summer; I haven't even been honest enough to be actively avoiding going, I've just let any small excuse justify skipping a Sunday.

Church kind of sucks for me lately. This entire year has been all about giant upheavals - the liturgy is getting changed, service times are being shifted, and the music is getting an overhaul.

The changes are right, they're essential if St. Ned's is going to keep growing and have a place for kids who are older than toddlers to worship, but no one is in their comfort zone anymore. A lot of people I care about seem to be angry or hurt or anxious. Some are leaving.

I don't think there's any way for change to happen without pain, so in the largest sense, what is happening now has to happen this way. The choices are not to change, or to change and go through a big messy time. There is no easy way.

Which all sounds reasonable, but it turns out I'm not very good at the messyness part of it. I'm so bad at dealing with other people's negative emotions about the changes. I keep taking it personally when people vent to me. I feel like the enemy.

I don't actually bear a lot of the responsibility for what's happening, but I do support what TheRev is doing, even if I'm not enjoying the birthing process even a little bit. I believe it's the right direction, but I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the actual hurting people I encounter. I feel so useless.

I don't know what this says about me and my fitness to lead, honestly. I'm bothered that I can't do a better job of shaking it off when people start dumping on the parish, that I start getting defensive right away. It's hard because it's the first time that I've really felt my 'other-ness' - when being on staff and being a parishioner have collided. So the little voice in my head says that it's only going to get worse when I have a collar, and that I'd better figure it out now.

Mostly I'm just really sad today.
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