An Unofficial Feast Day

I wrote a little bit yesterday about “The Second Sunday of Easter.”  I remarked that it is statistically the lowest-attended worship service day in the entire year.  This holds true across regional, denominational and size-of-church lines.  There are numerous studies performed by both religious and secular institutions that bear this out.

On a much less-studied note I offer a comment based on personal experience and observation.  That reflection is that many of us refer to the Sunday after Easter as one of three guaranteed “Associate Ministers’ Preaching Days.”   In congregations that have multiple staff (and especially multiple pastoral staff members) the preaching load of the Associate or Assistant or Co-pastor (the position goes by a lot of different names) varies widely.  Some preach regularly and do so every three or four weeks.  In other situations, the “second” pastor may preach irregularly if at all.  But, take it to the bank, the alternate preacher will take the pulpit the Sunday after Easter, the Sunday after Christmas and (in my United Methodist tradition) the Sunday of the convening of Annual Conference (when the Senior Pastor often wants to make a quick getaway, perhaps even leaving for the conference site the day before).

In my own experience, I was in one situation where I preached every Sunday.  I preached one Sunday morning and three/four Sunday evenings each month.  Our evening service had attendance in the high eighties (which was more than I would usually have in attendance in any one of the circuit churches I had pastored previously).  In another Associate Minister’s appointment, I did not have a regular schedule, but was assigned a preaching date about every five weeks.  Later in that same church I again did not have a regularly-scheduled preaching date, but my rather arbitrary time came around on the average of every eight to nine weeks.

But, no matter what the arrangement, one of those magical days when I took the pulpit was the Sunday after Easter.  So, that point on the calendar has a bit of sentimental significance for me.  It was one of those – sometimes few – times in the year when I could act out my “call to preach” in its fullness.  As an Associate Pastor, I was not alone.

Thanks be to God for the Sunday after Easter!