Summer Time Change Experiment

King Farouk, the last reigning monarch of Egypt, once said that there were three kings that would always reign: the king of Heaven, the King of Spades, and the King of England.

This was before 1952, when he abdicated the throne and sailed away on his royal yacht, never to return. He left a broken man: he had desired what he was not going to achieve: a fifth monarchy that would not end - his own.

It is difficult for us in the early Twenty-first century to imagine the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the English Monarch just a brief half a century ago. There are some in our congregation who will remember those days. I can remember the crowning of Elizabeth back in 1952 - and I was only 6. That made an impression on me! Imagine what it must have been like.

How times have changed. Whatever view of the English monarch Farouk had, it would be incredibly obtuse to think that the status of the English monarchy has not changed in 50 years. It has radically changed. The empire no longer exists. That empire upon which the sun never set is now the empire upon which the sun never rises. Some may look back with nostalgia; others look back and say ‘good riddance.’ Regardless, times have changed: not only for Egypt, but also for England.

And that’s not all that has changed. We continue to experiment with worship times on Sunday morning. On July 6, the first Sunday in July, we are changing the time of the first service to 7:45 am and the second service to 9:45. Sunday School will still be at 9:30. I know that some of you will be displeased, because it is too late. Others will be displeased because it is still too early. Quite a few have said that we should make the services at 8:00 and 10:00 am like everyone else who goes to church. We want still to finish by 11:00.

We make this one request: please don’t think that we are doing this whimsically or casually. We are making adjustments to accommodate those issues that St. Dunstan's has said are important. And they are not major adjustments. We are simply tweaking the schedule to accomplish as much with the congregation on Sunday mornings as we can.

King Farouk thought the English Monarchy would never change. He was wrong. I can’t speak for the King of Spades…but I will speak of the King of Heaven. He is unchanging, but I suggest that He grants us some wiggle room in scheduling his service.