significant lay participation

Last week one of the morning minyanaires asked if I would lead the service occasionally, and lent me a siddur when I said I needed to learn it better. (There's a big difference between being able to pray for yourself and being competent to lead a congregation.) This morning he asked how it was going ("slow progress", I said), and then he said something about me leading every Thursday (!). I said something like "let me get through it once before we schedule me for a regular slot, ok?". If I can do it correctly I would enjoy that, though.

I've been really enjoying the occasional opportunities to read Torah at my own congregation. (I almost said "periodic", but the cycle isn't regular yet.) I'm glad that we have something like ten people either reading already or interested in learning how. I think this will good for the community -- participation leads to engagement and investment.

I wonder which other religions have comparable opportunities for serious-but-not-formally-educated lay people to take on significant worship roles. My childhood congregation didn't, but that's only one data point.

(Aside: is there a better word than "lay" to describe "just plain folks" in this case?)

making time

Assertion: if something is important enough to you, you'll make time for it. So if you don't have time, it's probably just not important enough to you. (It doesn't matter whether "it" is a hobby, a political cause, reading the daily newspaper, watching a certain TV show, or whatever.)

An objection I saw raised to this (in a protected entry) was, basically, that people are busy, so being too busy doesn't mean the thing isn't important. But that misses the point, I think.

Yes, of course people are busy. I'm certainly very busy, at least. But my not having time for a given activity does not pass a value judgement on the activity -- just on that activity for me at this time.

Maybe I'm weird, but when I consider taking on something new, I ask myself where the time will come from. It has to come from somewhere, after all, and those college-age days of just saying "I'll sleep less" are long past. Certain time commitments are non-negotiable: job, family time, sleep, religious commitments. (That's not an ordered list.) All else is optional. (Of course commitments once made must be kept absent permission to break them. I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about the initial decision to take on the activity/commitment.)

When my music group (On the Mark) started, I realized that for me the time would come from the informal instrumental group I was playing with. When I became generally more active on the net, that time came from casual reading (particularly science fiction). When I started using LiveJournal, I dropped some mailing lists and put the final nail in the Usenet coffin. When I began to spend more time on religion, that time came from SCA involvement. (Within the "SCA" box there has also been an ebb and flow -- fighting gave way to choir, dancing to brewing (and music), archery to scribal time, scribal time to dance research (and persona research), and so on.) When I recently became chair of a synagogue committee, I planned for an easy initial chunk of time until my board term ends in May. And, yeah, there was one season of Babylon 5 for which the answer was "sleeping less one night a week isn't so bad".

The point is: to do things you have to give up other things. Sometimes there's nothing you are ready to give up, and that's a sign that you shouldn't be taking on that new thing right now. (Again thinking about the SCA, sometimes college freshmen fail to anticipate the competing time demands of SCA activities and classes. Classes have to come first.) Sometimes there are things you could give up but the new activity just isn't important enough for you to do so -- maybe your weekly commitment to fighting practice is more important than a new gaming group. So you don't "have time" for the gaming group, but if your situation were different you would have time for gaming and no longer have time for fighting.

There are only so many hours in the day. When something new comes along, I ask myself: is there anything I'm doing, and that I'm not committed to, that is less interesting than this new thing? If so, I consider a swap. If not, then I don't have time for the new thing right now, though I might have a year ago or might a year from now.