The Church

I attended two very different worship services this morning. One was at an
Evangelical Free church. The other was at a Roman Catholic Church.

The music at the E Free (as they call them) church was tremendous. Not the
usual "pop" music so many "contemporary" evangelical churches are aiming at.
A mix of traditional hymns and more modern worship songs. There was a vocal
quartet that helped to lead vocally. (I couldn't look at them as the one
fellow was very distracting with his gestures and facial expressions. He
may have been genuinely worshipping, but I couldn't tell if that was the
case and it detracted from my own sense of worship.) There was piano,
guitar, bass and brass choir accompaniment. No organ, but the brass made up
for that! And the brass didn't just "play along." They had their own parts
that were both well written and well played.

There was also some scripture reading and several prayers. At the end,
there was communion and we even spoke the Mystery of Faith: Christ has
died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

The sermon, focusing on Jesus' statement, "I am the vine..." lasted about 25
minutes. Actually, it lasted twice as long as it should have. When the
preacher (the senior pastor, in this case) read the passage, he kept making
comments as he read through it... I prefer just reading the passage and then
hearing whatever comments are to be made. While he made his point - that we
need to stay attached and "in" the vine in order to produce fruit (not just
the fruit of new believers but the fruit of the Spirit at least equally as
well) - he could have said it half (or even a third) of the time he took.
It wasn't really exegetical and didn't really describe how that is done
other than mentioning reading the Bible and doing what Jesus says we should
do. (Of course, that's a huge chunk of it, right there.)

We then were served communion. Typical, as far as evangelical churches, go.
The bread and the cup are merely symbolic of the body and the blood of
Christ. On that basis, I did not feel I could participate in partaking.
But I prayed and sang the songs as the elements were served.

One really nice thing that was different from what I've seen at most
protestant services that use PowerPoint was that the actually music notation
was projected on the screen along with the text of the songs - like you were
reading pieces of sheet music. Really much better than just the words...
especially for unfamiliar songs. (Of course, they must pay huge fees to
compensate for copyrights on both text and music.)

After most of our singing there were announcements. I could do away with
announcements altogether. Never liked them when I pastored a church,
either.

Most of the people there seemed very engaged throughout most of the worship
service. I did have a fairly strong sense of God's presence through the
service.

The second service was, obviously, far more liturgical. We were late coming
from the other service and so missed some of my favorite parts (like the
confession of sin). But I loved the liturgy, as usual. The music wasn't
too bad... The organist was very decent and the cantor was an excellent
vocalist. The songs themselves were either traditional hymns or traditional
responses. The hymns were in the hymnal - but I still don't know the tunes
for the responses - which I find frustrating.

I love the liturgy because in every mass the crucifixion is played out for
us so clearly. And we do exactly what millions of other Christians do and
have done for nearly 2000 years.

The homily was fairly typical - rather atrocious. No exegesis. No
foundation for why we should do what we're supposed to do. No real practical
application. Merely a summarizing of the three readings (this time ending
with the parable of the prodigal and his father) and the call to "come home
to the Father." No discussion as to why or how. No discussion of the
Father's heart. No discussion about where we are in the story. Very little
(albeit some) discussion of the father's heart.

But few people seemed engaged with the service. Very few sang anything.
Some (quite a few) left the service early.

If only we could merge the liturgy and mass of the RC with the music and
"spirit" of the evangelical (plus the exegetical and practical preaching of
someone like David Hall) - WOW!!

Forgive me, Lord, for being judgmental of your Church. She belongs to you,
not me. Have mercy on her, Lord. Be glorified in her and through her.
Make me worthy to honor and glorify you. Heal me. Heal your Church. Glory
and praise to you, Lord.