Boring Eagle COH

[Bob White]

Hopefully the ceremony was meaningful to the eagle candidate because afterall that is who the ceremony was for. If others enjoy it as well then thats an extra bonus prize. I would also hope that the purpose for being in the audience was to show the Scout your support and not for the performance of those in the ceremony.

 

Asking a minister priest or rabbi to come and pray but to not use the prayers of his or her faith is inconsiderate and insensitive to the life conviction they have made. When I see a member of the clergy about to pray I fully anticipate hearing them shre their faith even if it is not mine, and I am willing to bet that most others expect the same.

[Trevorum]

Bob, I think you've misunderstood what I tried to say. I did not mean to suggest that an invited speaker refrain from using the prayers of their faith. What I was trying to point out was that an invited speaker should not "preach" to a captive audience of mixed faiths. I feel that is inconsiderate.

 

BSA Chaplain, mea culpa ... point taken!

[fgoodwin]

BSAChaplain, the invited pastor gave both the invocation as well as the benediction, in addition to his remarks.

 

I didn't mean to come down so hard on him - I just thought as a youth minister, he could've been more sensitive to the attention span of boys who are 11-14 yo. These are boys who showed up to support the candidate (to get to BW's point), not to hear a sermon. Remember, these boys are in Scouting for many reasons, but I doubt if being preached to about character development is one of them -- they get enough of that on Sundays!

 

And yes, your last point is well-taken -- thanx for the reminder.

[Bob White]

If I invite a preacher I would expect that he'd preach.

[BSAChaplain]

Sure, if I invited a preacher, sure I'd expect him to preach. But I'm not sure that encompasses it all. Speaking for myself only, I see myself as a pastor first and a preacher only as a part of that role.

 

A pastor is a shepherd, responsible for the long term spiritual care of a person or a group of people. That's as much about lunch time meetings, late night phone calls in tears, hospital visits and weekends at retreats, as is is about monologuing (sp?). (I'm sure most of you know that, but sometimes people forget it.)

 

My assumption, from an informed Scout point of view, would be that I was there to speak about the new Eagle from the standpoint of a Scout is Reverent and Duty to God. Maybe to challenge him to soar to new heights in these areas or to lead others who come behind.

 

Then again, if the new Eagle asked me to come deliver a fire and brimstone sermon and no one told me it would not be appropriate in this setting, I'd do just that. (Well maybe not but that's not my style.)

 

So once again it comes back to communicating to the speaker what you want.

[BSAChaplain]

One more comment on your inital posting. You wrote, "My son (a recent crossover from Webelos) still wants to get his Eagle, but its in spite of last nite's presentation, certainly not as a result of it."

 

I can still remember sitting at the Eagle Court of Honor of Gerard Leiga in 1977. I was a newly crossed over Scout. I clearly remember thinking, what could a boy do that would have this many adults come and talk about him. A letter from the President, representatives from our congressmen, the Scoutmaster, previous Scoutmasters, all of these people telling us how amazing this was and how special it was that he had made it to Eagle. I remember nothing of the content except that they waid that less than 4% of the boys who become Scouts, make it to Eagle, and yet 100% of the Scouts have the ability to make it. I resolved then and there not to be one of the 96%. I knew that I wanted to live a life that was worthy of the kind of honor Gerard got that night. Plenty of people droned on and on that night, but I caught the vision.

 

A month or so ago, our OA chapter held a Court of Honor. It was really cool. Families came and many award were given. At the end of the event they called all of the Vigils up, described the honor that it represented. Then called the new Vigil candidates up for recognition. I could feel my son, a Tenderfoot at that point, watching me as I stood up there. When we got in the car to go home he said, "I've figured it out. Next year I can be First Class and I'll have all of the camping nights, so I can join the OA." He's still a little fuzzy on the election process. He caught the vision.

 

In two weeks we will have the first Eagle COH in our troop since my son became a Scout. They are going to make it a short ceremony (maybe even too short), and I will be adminstering the Eagle Oath. I hope that my son, the ten newly "crossed over" boys, the boys stalled at 2nd class and the ones stalled at Life catch a little more vision that night of what their future can hold, because of the honor we will all be paying to this young man.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Our NESA chapter assisted several Eagles with their COH's over the years. The ceremony evolved into a wedding type event. I personally felt that it was too fancy but a few of the elements were very good. We had a rehearsal where we practiced. There wasn't a dinner after the rehearsal but several of us would go to a cafe and drink coffee and talk about it. It was the interaction of the participants that helped to limit each one. People knew that others were involved and everyone was polite enough to not step into any other person's time slot. We always had a person that kept everyone on time, cued them and reminded them of their time allotments.

 

I always thought about Martin Short in the Steve Martin movie as the Wedding Planner wearing a headset and running around making sure everyone was prepared.

 

 

FB