I was mistaken! Which happens often, come to think of it.

Yesterday I told some folks that on Monday, the 19^th would mark the anniversary of my bulletin writing. Actually, this past Friday the 16^th was the day. So many years have gone by since the time that Mr Mo handed me a bulletin from a church he had visited somewhere and said “other churches do bulletins, why not us?” and little did I grasp at first that he was expecting ME to duplicate the effort!

Oh, I’ve tried passing the buck. I wanted Kieran to do it but he said they were “cute little stories” and sort of hinted that no real teaching was accomplished by them, so he wasn’t taking the bait. In fact in all the years he was here he only wrote one – the one that came on the Sunday after 911 because, as he put it, that one was “important” and people needed reassurance from their preacher. He didn’t even ask me to write it, he told me. Fancy that! Patti on the other hand wrote several.

When Mike came he muttered something about how he didn’t want to do it for some reason or other, so I’m still stuck. Not that some folks haven’t helped me out now and then, and I do appreciate that! I’ve written them serious, written them pun-ie, written them in encouragement and in scolding, I’ve expressed my advice, my opinions, and lots of scripture to nudge people in the right ways. Like anything else, there have been days when it’s been very hard and other times when they write themselves.

I had to write one the week Jeanne Santos died, and one for when Carol Picanso passed on. As hard as that was, my own brother leaving the Lord and turning his back on family was probably the most difficult of all. There have been very low points in my life, yet some very high points too. And through it all there have been bulletins.

I’ve never repeated one, in spite of Mr Mo telling me that if I ever got writer’s block I could just snag one from way back when and reprint it. As tempting as that sounds, the few times that I revisited a topic if I got too close to the same story line I would often hear from Susan one of her “didn’t you write about that before?” comments. Man, she’s good! So all these years, for good or ill, they’ve been created from scratch and handed to you in prototype form (that’s a joke for those who have long memories). There was ONE week in all those years that we didn’t have a bulletin – because the snow was so bad we didn’t have services for either morning or night.

The original one I still have, in fact I have them ALL but one in electronic form, and that one I have in printed/hand-out-able form so I could retype it if I wanted to. Every so often someone will ask for them and I will give them a CD. My wife kindly printed them all in a book once, at least the ones I wrote, from 1999 to 2002 I think. I gave them all away (we made several copies) but she promises me that when she’s done with dresses, quilts, lessons, crafts, and quiet books or other such things that she spends her time on making (almost exclusively for other people) that she will compile a new one.

The original one is interesting to read – Wade led Sunday morning singing, and Jerry preached Sunday night. Oh, and Brent led the singing Sunday night. Ed Paquette led one of the closing prayers, and Mike Garth served the Lord’s supper. Kevin Mitchell read the scripture reading. And Dave Dugas was a table assistant. Bruce Lower, Dennis Santos, and Tara Sutton were on the prayers list. And the “column” part, that silly story to the side, was entitled “Something To Think About”

Nine years. And hopefully, in all that time, I did indeed give you something, Godly and worth your time, to think about.

Randy