Sundays are my most variable day of the week. Any Sunday I could be at one of the three churches in the parish doing any number of jobs. I rotate between St. Dunstan’s, St. Michael’s, and St. Bride’s for Church on Sundays. Being in a multi-benefice team parish like St. Luke’s in the City means that there is always something happening at three different churches, so I rotate to be at whatever church needs me most on a given Sunday. On the first Sunday of the month, I am often at St. Dunstan’s to lead a youth group discussion as an alternative to the sermon. Second Sundays, like today, I am usually at St. Michael’s for the Godly Play family service. This month I was simply helping Laura, but in August I will be planning and leading the service. On third Sundays, I am generally at St. Bride’s in the morning as well as in the evening for the Open Table service. Open table is an LGBT+ service that focuses on creating a safe space for all. This is sadly quite rare the Church of England still does not recognize or allow for same-sex marriage or even blessings of unions. On the last Sunday of the month, the team parish rotates churches for a joint service for all members of the full parish. These services can be really nice since everyone from all the churches get to interact with each other and creates a feeling that the team parish is actually a community and not just three separate churches that share priests.

Today I was at St. Michael’s for the monthly godly play family service. On the second Sunday of each month, we take time to have a more interactive church with the kids. St. Michael’s has the most kids of the churches in the parish, so this service is great for that church. The service is fairly informal and largely discussion-based for the adults. For the kids, there were questions, art, and cupcake decorating. We sang some classic kid-friendly church songs like Rise and Shine and a godly play story of Noah’s Ark. It was a lovely service and I really enjoyed it.

After the service, I went out to brunch with the ‘student’ bible study group (though only two people are really students, the rest of us make it more of a 20 & 30’s group). Today we were saying goodbye to Maddie who is going back to Kansas as her semester abroad comes to an end. Getting to spend time with other progressive and inclusive Christians around my age is always nice but this group is genuinely awesome, so I had a great time.

After the awesome brunch, I took a nap. It was great.

Once I was up, Christi, Catherine, Ian, and I went bouldering. Ian and Catherine have been climbing for a while but have been getting Christi and me into it as well. It has been a long time since I climbed regularly so it has been really fun to get back into it. I have to be careful with my joints and I am not strong enough to do many hard climbs, but I have found a lot of fun routes that really focus on balance and flexibility over strength. It has been really great to break my shoes back out and get into it so today I finally caved and got a membership so I can start coming twice a week with my friends.

When we were home from our workout we had dinner. We all try to eat dinner at the same time on Sunday nights so that we can have a house meeting to go over anything we need to talk about as a house. Living in community can be hard at times, but keeping open communication between all of us helps keep us together.