One of my hobbies is attending other people’s religious services. I wrote a series of posts about doing so (and also some posts about services at my own congregation) on another chat site, but it is dying, so I am copying them over here. I’ll start each one with the date it was originally posted, and I may sometimes include some of the responses I got.
Sorry for the massive text-dump, but I’m afraid they will otherwise disappear for good.
3/30/2013 – Easter Vigil
A couple of years ago I was thinking of going to an Easter service, and a bunch of folks suggested I try Easter Vigil. So this year I went. It was my first Easter Vigil service (my first Easter-anything service).
I went to a church that calls itself Catholic in the same way that the Mormons call themselves Christian. That is, there’s certainly a lot in common (they even claim apostolistic succession) but there are some important differences that would give traditional Catholics pause. For instance, the clergy was a (heterosexual) married couple, and the woman did many key parts of the service. It was a really nice service, but I’m curious how it compares to other Easter vigils, Catholic and otherwise.
The building itself was beautiful. They rent it from another church, so their regular Sunday worship service in the evening, and they get Easter Vigil, but the other congregation gets Easter Sunday. The sanctuary was a simple rectangular hall, with white walls, lots of windows, and very high cathedral ceiling in natural wood. The space was airy and inviting. The front of the room was dominated by a large cross shaped window, framing the approximately life-sized simple wooden cross. (The wood matched the ceiling and the supporting arches.) The cross was draped in white fabric and palm leaves for the holiday. In the back of the room was some open space set up with toys for kids, and above that was a balcony, which could be used for a choir or as extra seating.
There was seating for about 100, arranged in a sort of flattened circle, 3 chairs deep, with musicians at the front, and a table near the middle. There were only 30-40 people there, including the clergy and the musicians. The people seemed old - maybe averaging 65 - but they are apparently in the midst of a baby boom, with three babies so far this year, and the friend I went with is expecting in a week. Her toddler was the only person under 30 in the room.
We started outside, in the lobby, where the priests lit a large candle to some prayers, and then some helpers lit the little votive candles we were all holding. As the priest spoke about how we had used fire from time immemorial, a steam kettle in the kitchen started to whistle, to everyone’s amusement. After a few prayers, we preceded into the sanctuary and sat down.
Some prayers and meditations, including a really lovely poem about the empty tomb. This portion included a chunk of the Passover liturgy, as well as core parts of the V’ahavta (part of the Jewish liturgy, but in English, of course. “You shall love the lord your god with all your heart…”) and the “holy, holy, holy” bit. It ended with the congregation singing “Gloria in excelsis Deo”. Sometime during this section, one of the priests invited us all to put our candles on the central table.
Then there was a Quaker-like interlude. One of the priests invited everyone to share reflections with the group, and the other priest started off. That was followed by a long quiet time, until someone else was moved to speak. A couple of other people spoke briefly. They made observations about the divinity in the world, but there wasn’t anything like the “testimony” I heard when I went to Mormon services. Everything said was very outwardly focused. (And mostly, it was just a time of quiet thought.)
Then there was a “Liturgy of the Water”. A shallow bowl of water on the central table was blessed, and the congregation lined up to dip their hands in the water (many crossing themselves with their wet hands) and they “renewed their baptismal promises”.
Then, in another part that reminded me of a section in my regular (Jewish) service, various people spoke the names of people in need of healing, and the congregation thanks God for hearing our prayers. (But we didn’t actually pray as a congregation for healing, which we would have at a Jewish service.) At some point people also named the dead, possibly at this point, but I’m not sure.
The clergy-woman’s aunt had died THAT DAY. My friend had some contractions during this part of the service, and both of those added some immediacy to the Easter theme.
A offertory basket was passed around, and then the congregation celebrated the eucharist.
Volunteers brought bread and wine to the table. We said a prayer very reminiscent of the Aleinu, and the woman blessed the bread (almost the same as the Jewish ritual blessing over the bread) and the man blessed the wine (again, could have been an unusual translation of the standard Jewish prayer) and they spoke about the last supper and quoted Jesus. As the man talked about Jesus breaking bread with the disciples, the woman literally broke up the bread, which was sort of a thick brown wafer, scored, like a chocolate bar is scored, to make it easy to break into pieces. I thought that was rather nice. Then they passed trays of bread and cups of wine around the room, for people to partake.
More singing, and the congregation shared wishes of peace. Then everyone held hands in a giant circle, and we said the Lord’s Prayer.
Then there was a prayer similar to one near the beginning of a Jewish service, on the general theme of asking God to help us to pray properly.
The service ended with everyone singing “Lord of the Dance”, accompanied by bells and a wide variety of simple percussion instruments, and then people drifted out to share tea and cookies and fruit.
So, when I was there, it all felt very informal and a little new-age/guitar music-y. But in retrospect, quite a lot of the service could have been from a formal Jewish Sabbath service, and it seemed ritually satisfying and spiritually rich. I have a few more new services on my “go to” list, but I may go back to this one. (And my friend must be a bit of a tourist, too, because she asked about going to my temple some time. It would be fun to share.)
someone asked:
Did you partake of the bread and wine? I find other church/religious services interesting and can enjoy going. But I don’t partake of the communion ceremony/sacrament because I feel like it is disingenuous of me to do that.
Someone else asked:
How long did the service last?The Roman Catholic Easter Vigils are over 3 hours. Many readings from the Bible, usually initiation of adults into the Faith, a reconfirmation of one’s belief and desire to be a member of the Catholic Church. Depending on one’s nationality a blessing of some objects. (usually water, bread)
I did not partake of the water, nor of the sacrement. Apparently, this church lets anyone who wants to share in their sacrement, but I feel you should at least believe you are in communion with them to share with them in that. Yes, that’s another difference between this church and a Roman Catholic church, a Roman Catholic church would not welcome me to take their sacrement, although I doubt anyone would check or actually turn me away. I forget what this group calls themselves, but it’s some-other-adjective-Catholic.
I did carry a candle during the beginning procession, which my friend said I didn’t have to do if it made me uncomfortable. That felt less like a personal statement to me, though.
I didn’t keep track of how long the service lasted. Maybe 2, 2.5 hours? Jewish services are often that long, and I just assumed that I wouldn’t have time for anything else that evening. I am often surprised by how short Christian services are, and I remembered that after I got there, and wondered if I might be home in time to do some stuff, but I wasn’t, and that was fine. I enjoyed the service, and felt the pacing was pretty good, with enough variety what was happening that I never felt like it was dragging.
Andy, did you make it through my “blog”? Were the parts similar to the parts of a traditional Catholic service?
Oh, and a lot of the people at this service had been at a previous event involving foot washing, both as washers and as washees.
someone commented:
There’s no Catholic ID card or anything they check before giving you communion. If you walk up for, they’ll give it to you, unless you’re a famously excommunicated person or something.
No, but it’s on the honor system, and as an honorable person, I would not take communion at a traditional Catholic service. I suppose someone who felt unfairly excluded form communion might, but the Catholics and I completely agree about my not being a Christian in good standing according to Catholic doctrine.
Whereas at this church, I was explicitly told that anyone was welcome to partake. So if, for whatever reason, I had been moved to do so, I might have.
(Of course, not only am I not a Christian, but also, the communion bread was a leavened bread, and it’s Passover. So I wouldn’t even have been tempted to try a bit of it for curiosity’s sake before it was transubstantiated.)
I asked how this compared to a traditional Catholic service, and someone replied:
I’m Episcopalian and we observe the same Easter Vigil ritual so I can give you some perspective. The traditional ritual does start with a fire at the back of the church and using it to light the Paschal candle. This year we built the fire outside because the weather was mild. You then process into the church for over an hour of biblical readings; I got to do the “dry bones” one from Ezekiel, which I always enjoy. If they follow the traditions, there are some pieces of music you’ll never hear in any other service- the Exsultet, which is a very difficult chant, Miriam’s song (“Horse and rider He has thrown into the sea”), and “Vidi Aquam” which, unfortunately, my current church doesn’t do. It’s in Latin and I love Latin. No periods of silence of sharing observations.
THEN the regular service starts which is pretty much like a traditional Sunday service but with renewal of baptismal vows (or baptism if anyone is to be baptized). Did you get sprinkled with holy water? At our church they fling it at the congregation from something that looks like a small, hand-held broom, but I know one priest who liked to fling it off a bunch of daffodils!
Then we had incense. Ah, incense. Fortunately I was up on the altar because I was doing the chalice at communion. I just inhaled and breathed it all in. later I told the acolytes the tradiitonal greeting for a priest holding a censer full of smoking incense: “Nice dress, Honey, but your purse is on fire”.
The women blessing bread, etc. in the service you attended isn’t part of the typical service; it may be an attempt on the part of the RCs to include women in the service because they can’t be priests. Episcopalians don’t have that issue!
I love this service (even though it’s long) and Easter season music is my favorite. I’m happy to answer any questions.
4-21-2013 a Sunday service at the Paulist Center, a liberal Catholic group in Boston
In the aftermath of the Boston brouhaha, I decided to spend the weekend there and visit friends and family. So I went to church with a friend at the Paulist Center.
[url]http://www.paulistboston.com/[/url]
It is a Roman Catholic church, but it’s very liberal as Catholic Churches go. For instance, they don’t use pronouns for God at this church, avoiding the whole gender issue.
The first thing I noticed was the crucifix, which was the most unusual crucifix I have ever seen - so much so that I’ve attached a photo. The photo doesn’t do it justice, because it lacks perspective, and you can’t easily see that the body of Christ has risen off the tree and is floating above and in front of it. I’s also not completely obvious from the photo that it’s a natural tree, split asunder. It was quite striking and I found it moving, despite not being Christian.
Rather than have books in the pews, they projected the things the congregation would say on the wall, on either side of the crucifix. They didn’t have any pretty pictures, just text, and the notes in the case of songs.
There were perhaps 70-80 people when the service started, but people kept trickling in, and I’m sure there were over 100 by the end.
For those of you who associate liturgical services with lots of droning responsive reading, this service might surprise you. They did have five lines of responsive reading, but that was it. The congregation also read the apostles creed and the 23rd psalm in unison. But pretty much everything else the congregation “said” was songs, or stuff that didn’t get projected (like “amen”, or saying “peace be with you”, to nearby congregants.)
There was a lot of singing. There were three bible readings (old testament, revelations, and gospel) each of which seemed extremely short to me. The priest dedicated the service to the victims of the recent tragedy, and to all the people who were touched by it and responded to it. And the theme of the sermon (under 15 minutes) was “we owe our resilience to God. Nothing can wrest us out of God’s hands, not even death.” As with the non-Roman Catholic service I went to, there wasn’t much that I couldn’t participate in, although of course I didn’t read the apostle’s creed, or a few verses of songs. But most of it was quite general, and things that might be said at a Jewish service.
They had a cantor. I don’t know what you’d call that in English, but there was a guy who wasn’t the priest who led the congregation in several prayers. Often, he would sing the verses, and the congregation would sing the chorus. The priest was dressed in simple white vestments, but the cantor was dressed casually, with a tidy short-sleeved button-down shirt and slacks.
After reading the gospels, I noticed that the priest kissed the book he read from, before setting it down. This is similar to Jewish practice, except we usually touch the torah with a corner of the prayer shawl we wear, and then kiss the shawl. The priest also had a binder from which he read his sermon and some of the prayers. (He didn’t kiss that.)
After the readings, (maybe immediately after the recitation of the apostles’ creed?) the priest talked about the spiritual virtues of water, and then took a bowl of water and a sort of hand-broom, and splashed water over the congregation. The congregants responded by crossing themselves.
After another song or two, they did the communion service, which took about 10 minutes. The priest poured some of the water he’d been splashing around into a large cruet of wine, and then poured some of the wine into a glass. He talked about the last supper, and held up the bread and the wine. Apparently the church has members who bake the bread for communion. Some of the bread was broken up in a basket, but there was a large round “wafer” that looked sort of like the bread at the Easter vigil (a sort of thick flat bread) except it was shaped like a giant sand-dollar, round with radial lines scoring it. At one point he took a narrow wedge of the bread from the basket and held it over the cup in a gesture that reminded me of the Wiccan ritual where they hold a knife over a chalice. He may have dropped some crumbs from the bread into the wine, but I wasn’t sure if that was on purpose, or even if it happened.
After the blessings, he broke up the bread, with the help of a woman who seemed to help with a lot of “administration” on the stage. They had passed around an offering basket (and most people dropped some cash, not the envelopes I see at most places) but they lined up filed to the front to receive communion from two stations, one manned by the priest (who had the bread) and a woman who held a cup of wine, and the other manned by the woman who had helped break the bread (who gave the bread) and a man from the choir who offered wine. Everyone who took communion took the bread, but only about half drank the wine, maybe a bit less. everyone drank from the same two cups, but the people offering the wine had white dish clothes and wiped the edge of the cup after each person partook. It occurred to me that someone who couldn’t tolerate gluten could easily have lined up with the others and skipped the bread, and just taken the wine, without it being at all obvious or disruptive in any way.
One of the women receiving communion had two little children in tow, and one of them said, quite loudly, “I want a piece”, and then cried a little.
Then there were some more songs, we wished peace upon each other, and there was some administrative stuff (upcoming events, etc.) one final song, and the service was over, in slightly over an hour.
There was certainly more talk of “works” than at the non-denominational service. They sang about how God’s mercy will be granted to the good, for instance. And the structure of the service felt similar to that of a Jewish service, except that the communion service took the role of our torah service (where we read the weekly torah portion) and the sermon fell before that, instead of after it.
(I originally posted a photo, but I guess I can’t do that here. 
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6/1/2013 A Reform Jewish B’nai Mitzvah
The daughter of one my cousins celebrated her Bat Mitzvah today, and of course I was there. As is common in large Reform synagogues, she shared the celebration with another youth, in this case, a boy. Usually the boys haven’t hit puberty at these things, and the girls have, but in this case, both were pre-pubescent, and super cute.
As background, Jews considered children to become morally and spiritually adults around age 13, and celebrate that with a big bash (think “half a wedding”). The core of the event is that the youths are allowed to take part in the service, taking a role that is reserved for a Jewish adult (or a Jewish man, if you are Orthodox.) So it’s usually a long Saturday morning service in which some of the major prayers are led by the celebrants. The celebrants are also called to the torah to give the blessing, and usually to read from the torah. They often give a brief sermon (dvar torah) about the part they read, and usually also read the haftorah, a portion of the Bible that isn’t torah that is read with that torah portion. Today’s reading was about the scouts who checked out the “land of milk and honey” and came back frightened by the strength of the people already there. The haftorah was a reading from Joshua about scouting the city of Jerico.
The room was typical Reform Jewish architecture. It had seating for about 200 (about 3/4 full) in a large room with a high, shallowly vaulted ceiling. the walls were brick and stained glass, with attractive large wooden pillars that extended to form the vaulting that supported the ceiling. (maybe I didn’t describe that quite right, but you get the idea.) The seats looks like pews from the back, but had plush pop-down seat cushions, like in a movie theater, but a hard straight (pew-like) wooden back. On the back of the seat (facing the seat behind it) there’s railing to hold books, and each pair of seats had two prayer books and one book of the torah and haftorah readings. (“some of you may have to share”). Each page of the Torah book had the Hebrew at the top, a translation in the center of the page, and lots of notes at the bottom. There were also notes at the end of each section (in this case, talking about the documentary hypothesis of the Bible and which parts of the reading came from each source, and how they had different themes.)
In the front of the room was a low stage (“bimah”). At the back of the stage was an was ark (a large closet or armoire holding the congregation’s torahs) with a sort of abstract design painted on the front. Behind the ark and across most of the far side of the stage there was a large wooden screen that looked like it was there for acoustic reasons, but it matched the wooden pillars. In front of the screen were about a dozen chairs, facing the congregation, half to either side of the ark. At the start of the service, the youths sat here, one on each side, and the president of the temple sat with the girl. Later, the parents would join the youths, and the rabbi and cantor would sit there when there weren’t active in the service. Above and just in front of the ark was the “eternal flame”, this one was a stained-glass lamp that was reminiscent of the burning bush that Moses talked to. The flame (usually electric) is always left on, and it represents both the lamp that always burned in the Temple in Jerusalem, and also God.
At the front of the stage was a large table, slightly sloped. It is designed to hold torah scrolls, and most of the service takes place around this table.
We started about 15 minutes later than advertised, at which point the cantor started to sing a prayer that commonly starts services. The room was full of people talking to each other, and he wasn’t very loud, and I think he was nearly done before people even noticed. As with many bar mitzvahs, most of the people were friends or family of the kids, and not regular members of the community, and they were more interested in catching up with each other than with starting the service. 
After every one settled down, the rabbi asked us to form a worship community by introducing ourselves to our neighbors. Then we thanked God for giving us the Torah, discussed a brief snippet of torah (to make sure that we hadn’t made that blessing “in vain”, thanked God for our bodies and souls, and launched into the main service.
The major prayers were chanted in Hebrew, and no one knew them. In my congregation, there are usually a lot of people chanting along with the prayer leader (usually one of the kids, in this case) but in this one, often it sounded like the rabbi and cantor were about the only ones reading with the leader, with very scattered voices from the audience. (The Hebrew prayers are all printed both in Hebrew font and in transliteration, so it’s not like it’s hard to do.) The congregation stood for a couple of important prayers, but mostly just stood quietly. There was a little more participation with the English, but not much, and a lot of people did recite the Shema, which is very short, and perhaps the best known prayer in the liturgy. (“Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”) but it went away again for the V’ahavta (“you shall love the Lord…”)
Then the central Torah service began. Everyone stood while the ark was opened, and the rabbi took out one of the Torahs. The Torah used in a service is usually a ritual scroll, hand-written on parchment (made from a kosher animal, usually sheep or goat, I think), and unrolled just enough to read the weekly reading. It is stored upright in the ark, with a velvet belt to hold it closed, and a form-fitting ornamental cloth covering, as well as (usually) silver crowns on the tops of the wooden poles that the scroll wraps around, and a silver “pointer”, used to keep your place while reading without touching the surface and perhaps wearing it out. This congregation had 3, which is a common number for a well-off congregation of its size.
The rabbi carried the torah, still in its wrapping, around the congregation, trailed by the kids and their families. People reach out to touch the Torah (usually with the corner of a prayer book or of the prayer shawl they are wearing) and then kiss whatever touched the Torah. This is also an opportunity to smile at the kid and congratulate the parents. The Torah eventually returned to the front, and was undressed and opened on the table, at which point all the people sat down.
Jewish services are an opportunity for the congregation to honor various members, and one of the prime honors is being the person who says the blessing before reading the Torah. On Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, usually the kids and their immediate families get those honors, and this service worked like that. Each family got 4 readings, so 4 blessings, with the kid reading each piece. Some of the people chanted the blessing in modern Hebrew, some read it, and some chanted it in Yiddish-style Hebrew. The congregation replied in the same style as the main blessing was read. In each case, the parents got the penultimate blessing, and stayed on the bimah while their child read the last blessing and the last portion. Then the parents blessed their child and there was a little group hug.
After the Torah was chanted in Hebrew by the kids, an uncle and two aunts read the same portion in English. (each taking a piece.) Then the rabbi held up the torah scroll, open, so everyone could see (from a distance) the text we’d just heard, and the torah was wrapped up, dressed, and someone took it and sat down in the one of those chairs on the stage.
Then the kids read the haftorah (in Hebrew) and each gave his little sermon. After the rabbi told the kids what a great job they had done (and they had, but he probably would hav said the same thing anyway) and there were a few more prayers.
Next, the congregation rose to put the Torah back in the ark. Each child said a prayer he had written himself in front of the open ark, the rabbi said something quietly to the youths and their families, and the ark was closed and everyone sat down again.
Then the rabbi presented the youths with some gifts from the sisterhood, the brotherhood, and the youth group, the parents talked again about their kids, there were some final prayers, and the service was over. We ended with the kaddish, which is traditionally recited by mourners, although the actual prayer never mentions death or mourning, and is mostly a lot of ways of praising God. It ends with a wish for peace. A lot of people did join in to read that prayer.
Then the rabbi instructed the congregation where the parties held by the two families would be (conveniently, both in the same building, in different rooms) and everyone filed out to go to their respective events.
10/23/2011 Visiting a Church of Latter Day Saints
In a previous thread, a Mormon poster challenged me to visit a Mormon service.
I enjoy religious services, and had never been to a Mormon one, so I went to one this Sunday. No, I won’t be going every week for 6 months. But I went to one, and may return for a 1st of the month" service sometime.
I hope it’s okay calling it “Mormon” – folks in the service sort of implied that was offensive or disrepectful, but folks here seem to use the term, and it’s a lot shorter to type than “Latter Day Saints” (and isn’t easy to confuse with the name of a drug). If you want me to change it, let me know and I will.
Three congregations meet at the local facility, at 9, 11, and 1 (although the website says 9, 11, and 11) and I went to the convenient 11:00 service and the first hour of Sunday school.
It really didn’t feel like a Christian service to me, although I wouldn’t say it is entirely outside the range of what I might expect in a Christian service. But it felt very different from any other Christian service I happen to have been to. The hour of Sunday school felt much more Christian.
The architecture was plain and modern. The sanctuary had some features that looked “imposing”, like a bank, but more ornamental. I guess a lot of vertical lines. Most of the room was taken up by comfortable pews, with a block in the center and two wings. I estimate the pews could have held about 200 people, and there were perhaps 120 there. In the front was a raised platform, sloping gently up as it moved to the front of the room. It held about 50 individual sets facing the pews, a lectern, and an organ. Oddly, there were only 6 people (counting the organist) in those 50 seats. I asked and was told that was for the choir, but it was a volunteer choir that usually didn’t meet. There was no cross, not even beams on the front of the lectern in a vaguely cross-like pattern. There was a sign at the top of the platform telling us which songs would be sung this week.
I got there a little late and walked in with a young couple. They promptly “adopted” me and invited me to sit with them, so I did. She whispered helpful stuff about what was going on from time to time.
It was the youngest congregation of any type I have ever seen. There were little kids everywhere. As soon as I sat down a baby behind me grabbed my hair and started playing with it until her mom pulled her away. A baby in front of my flirted with me throughout the service. The family to my left had a little boy and a toddler, and at one point I removed the little boy’s pencil from the hand of the toddler, who was about to stab the man in front of him. (The toddler wasn’t being aggressive, he was just playing, and was too young to realize he shouldn’t poke people with pencils.) There was so much “kid noise” that sometimes it was hard to hear the speaker, even though I was only about 3 rows from the front. I didn’t notice any children as old as 10, and there were only a few older adults. Most everyone was either a 20-something adult or a child under age 8. I’m sure that isn’t true of every Mormon congregation, but I mention it because that might affect how this one is run.
One thing that really struck me was that there was almost no liturgy. I come from a liturgical tradition, and liturgy is one of the things I enjoy at religious services.
When I got there the speaker was finishing up some announcements. Then he told the congregation that a couple of people had been called to service in the church (a woman as a babysitter in the nursery, and a man as something I didn’t quite catch) and he asked the congregation to vote on whether the spirit moved them to confirm these callings. Most of the adults raised their hands in affirmation, and no one voted “no”.
Next a woman gave an opening prayer, asking that we could all listen and benefit from the service. She did this with her eyes closed and it seemed to be free-form, rather than a standard (liturgical) prayer.
I may have the elements slightly out of order, but early on there was a prayer that was explicitly for the current church prophet, as well as some other people. That was perhaps the part that felt weirdest to me.
I think next was a hymn, then they passed around the sacrament (bread and water), and then another hymn. The bread and water were blessed by a young man who asked Christ to help all the people who partook of it, but it was obviously symbolic, with no transubstantiation going on. In fact, I asked the woman next to me about transubstantiation, and she asked me what the word meant. The bread was just an ordinary loaf of good bakery bread broken into little pieces, and the water was served in tiny dixie cups. Passing around the sacrament took a lot of time, and parents played with their kids and kids made a lot of noise during this bit.
Next up were testimonies from two men, each followed by a hymn that reflected the topic of their testimony. (So, 4 hymns total) They appeared to be random members of the congregation, and not people who were used to public speaking. They were each quite personal. The first spoke of feeling the spirit of Christ in the voices of various people (all latter day saints, except the last, who was a leader on the Nation of Islam) and compared that to being near Christ. The second spoke about how reading the Book of Mormon strengthened his faith. Both made a point of saying how they were really Christian, and the church is really Christian, and they were hurt when people believed otherwise.
While I understand why Mormons might feel defensive about that, it is really bizarre to have people arguing the case that they are really and truly Christian in a church. In a traditional church people will sometimes talk about how they wish they were more Christian, or urging others to be more Christian, or even testify about feeling the Spirit. But they don’t talk about how “hey, I really am a Christian, honest”. And, as a non-Christian, I observe that most of the evidence they gave of their Christian-ness" was just evidence of spirituality or religiousness, and could have been shared by a member of any other faith who happened to use the word “Christ” for “God”.
After that there was a little more administrative stuff, and we disbanded. No bible readings, nothing that really felt like a sermon, and as I mentioned before, no liturgy outside of the 4 hymns. I was surprised how little the congregation sang. My Reform Jewish congregation does better, even though most of our songs are in Hebrew and most of the congregation doesn’t know Hebrew. I guess they were all busy caring for their offspring.
As the service ended, I was invited by the couple to Sunday school. They volunteered in the nursery, so when I said I was interested, they passed me off to one of the half-dozen older women, who took me to that.
That seemed more traditionally Christian. We split into 4 groups and read bits of Hebrews, and then talked as a group about the themes of faith in the text, and about how Christ’s being human gave him empathy, and how faith and empathy spanned the gap between mankind and God. They didn’t even mention during Sunday school that God and Jesus are different people, although that had come up during the service.
[aside]I also learned why Christians always seem to think a blood sacrifice is needed for forgiveness of sin. (The Torah is quite clear that a proper sin offering is based on the resources of the sinner. A rich man should sacrifice a young bull, but a very poor man should sacrifice a portion of grain. So blood is only needed if you can afford it.) Paul says so, in his letter to the Hebrews. Go figure.[/aside]
Some guy gave me a loaf of bread as a gift for having visited. Everyone was very friendly. I wasn’t approached by anyone who was explicitly a missionary. Several people asked why I was there, and I told them that I lived in the area, and was something of a religious tourist, and was curious about their service. They all urged me to return. Some pointed out that I’d come to the service for people a few towns away, and the service for my town was one of the other services (they weren’t sure which one.)
So, that’s pretty much it.
Oh, and I can see how the service would be nice, but it’s not really my thing. I enjoy liturgy ritual and a more directly invocation of the presence of the divine. I may return for a first-of-the month meeting out of curiosity, but I won’t be returning in search of anything more than that.
(I have, on occasion, stopped by a Catholic church to get a “religion” fix. There are a bunch of other services that do the same for me, oddly enough including the Pagan service I went to, and a Shinto service. But LDS doesn’t seem to do it for me. And UU and humanist services sometimes speak to me on a personal level. The LDS church didn’t do that for me, either. Apparently not my calling. 
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4/20/2014 Lutheran Easter Sunday
I apologize for a somewhat rambling and disjointed post. But here goes:
I met a Lutheran pastor recently, and I planned to go to Easter Vigil at her church. But she caught the flu and the service was cancelled. I happened to be up early this morning, so I decided to catch the 8:30 Easter service.
I’ve never been to any Easter services before, and I’d guess that a lot of what happened at this service would happen at many other services. I’d be curious to hear from Christians what sounds familiar or unfamiliar.
It is a very small church – 14 rows of pews, each of which probably holds 4 people on each side. And this was the way-early service, so it was sparsely attended. I couldn’t help but notice as I pulled into the lot with my plug-in car that 3 of the 16 other cars I could see were Priuses, so it was probably a socially liberal congregation. Once inside, I enjoyed bell & organ music, produced by children (at least the bells – the voice of the conductor telling them where to sit, and how they’d get breakfast between the two morning services was clearly audible in the church.) The pews filled from the back forward, and it never got very full. I counted 20-30 congregants (plus the invisible children in the balcony) but some people must have drifted in late, because there were more by the time they got around to communion.
The church was small and very attractive. It had a high, vaulted ceiling all done in wood, and sitting there felt a little like being in a ship. The front wall was stonework, and held a cross in the center which was decorated with a garland of flowers. The the (audience) left was an attractive abstract blue banner, and to the right a sign stating which hymns we would sing. There were two modest pulpits (one on either side) and in the center was a table with some stuff covered in white cloth. It was surrounded by a short railing, except right in front, where it was open.
There were a lot of candles, including two large ones (one on each side), two ascending rows of candles sort of flanking the cross, and a very large candle front and center. An acolyte (a young man in a white cloak) lit the large central candle at the start of the service, and he an a similarly clad female acolyte lit the rest of the candles shortly thereafter.
The service was mostly quite informal, as seems appropriate given its size. The minister explained that she was recovering from flu (36 hours fever-free) and that she would not be touching the communion or shaking hands with members of the congregation, but still loved us. The congregation was also somewhat informal. Many men wore suits, but I saw polo shirts, a tee-shirt, and various levels of formality and informality among the women. One woman brought her knitting. I felt slightly overdressed, but I generally try to dress on the formal side of my best guess, so that was okay.
The refrain of the service was “Alleluyah! Christ is risen” and the congregation replied, “Christ is risen indeed, Alleluyah!” That opened the service, closed the service, and much have been said dozens of times during the service. In general, there were a lot of “tag lines” that the minister said and the congregation responded to. I was surprised that they weren’t anywhere obvious in the texts provided – you just had to know. And I didn’t. But most of the congregation did, and while they didn’t speak very loudly, most of them did participate in the responses.
So, after the organ & bell music, the opening “Christ is Risen” and the greeting from the pastor, the main service began. There were some prayers spoken while the congregation stood, a reading from Jeremiah, a psalm read responsively (they left out all the verses that specifically referred to Israel), some more NT readings, and then the section of Matthew that describes the women finding the open tomb, up through Jesus’s followers going to Galilee to meet him.
Then the pastor called all the children up, and she sat on the floor with them and delivered a short sermon to them, organized around an alphabet book she had created where each page said something about Easter or about Christ using lots of words starting with its letter.
After that, she delivered a sermon to the adults, which was quite personal and rather funny, on the twin themes of forgiveness and joy.
More hymns, then the congregation recited the Nicene Creed. After that someone prayed for healing and wellbeing for the world, and then listed something like 20 names of people for the congregation to pray for. (Nearly as many sick people as people in the room, which seemed odd. Especially since the congregation seemed rather young – I was one of the older people there. But then, this was the way-early service. Maybe more and older people showed up later.) The pastor added something about also praying for the unspoken prayers of the congregation, etc.
A few more “Christ is risens”, and then everyone greeted each other and wished each other peace. The pastor and everyone up front walked through the sanctuary during this, and lots of people moved around. It wasn’t just a “shake hands with the three people closest to you” sort of thing. I was probably greeted by most of the adults there.
After that, the official people all filed back in to the front, and two guys picked up an extra board and closed off the opening to the table on the back of the stage. The pastor blessed the bread and the wine (keeping her hands away from directly touching it) and two guys started inviting people, row by row, to go up and receive communion. People kneeled at the “table” that had been formed by the now-completed railing, and an assistant handed a piece of bread (freshly broken off a leavened loaf) to each one. A note said that you could either sip the wine from a shared cup, or dip your bread into your choice of red wine or white grape juice, but I couldn’t really see what they did, as the front of the room was quite crowded.
Some more “Christ is risens”, more handbells and organ music, another Easter-themed hymn, the acolytes came back to put out the candles, a final, rousing, “Christ is risen”, and it was over. Everyone was invited to another room for breakfast, and the people from the first service mingled with those coming to the second service over pastries, fruit, coffee, and juice.
I would liked to see that photo if you can find a way.
9/25/2014: A very traditional Anglican Church
This happened a while back. I’ve been too busy to write it up properly, and now might be too late to do it justice. But it was extremely interesting, and I’m going to try. Just be warned that my memory sucks, so my details may not be as accurate as they would be for a fresher visit.
Anyhow, I was in London, and it was Sunday, and I had to be near the church anyway, so I went to services at a very “high” Anglican church. That means “more like Catholic”, or “more traditional”, but this one was amazing.
In prior posts, I have often defended ritual from people who don’t care for it. This service gave me the opportunity to experience what I suspect your emotional reaction to ritual is. The ritual was over the top. It wasn’t a large
church, and the weather was horrid (edge of a hurricane) and it was in the midst of August vacations, so there were only about 50 members of the congregation. Serving those 50 were 9 different officiants. There were three men who mostly ran the service, dressed in heavy elaborate brocade, and three more who helped them with their clothing (more on that later) and another who gave the sermon, and two others who helped move stuff around. Eight of those men were old enough to be my father, and the ninth looked young enough to be my son.
The church is a beautiful building, in a highly ornate way. I particularly admired the stained glass. I took photos before the service started, so I can describe the room in some detail. It was long, narrow, and quite tall, with a vaulted ceiling. There were traditional pews on each side, and tall white pillars flanking the main section of the room. In the front was a large ornate structure carved of dark wood, with a gold-covered eagle in the center, a pair of gold angels above and to either side of that, and at the top, a large, rather life-like crucifix with an alabaster Jesus. It was flanked by two large sculptures of people, perhaps Mary and Peter? There were also colorful portraits of Biblical figures on the wood. In front of that was a table holding holding a cross, several tall candles, and a gorgeously ornamented book. A bit to the front and to audience-right was a pulpit, a small wooden box up a circular stair, in the style I associate with Lutherans. Between the table and the pulpit was an iron fence, open in the middle.
I’m told y’all call a portion of the ritual space in front the altar. This is new to me – despite going to a lot of services, that’s not the sort of word that comes up a lot in conversation. So I’m not certain exactly how much is the altar, and I have to confess, using the word sort of creeps me out, as I associate it with bloody sacrifices in the Temple. I suppose it’s because Christians associate church with the sacrifice of Jesus, which sort of makes sense. But I’m still getting over the disconnect between a somewhat gory ancient ritual and staid modern churches. So please bear with me here.
(The word didn’t disconcert me as much at the Hindu temple, probably because they DID leave sacrifices at the various altars, so it seemed like a more natural use of the word from my background. And, of course, their sacrifices were mostly rice and spices, not bleeding animal corpses.)
The service itself was gorgeous. It was visually gorgeous, as the three men-in-brocade walked in perfect choreographed harmony, even when they did potentially awkward things, like duck to let helped remove their hats, or put on their hats, or take off their cloaks, or drape different cloaks over their shoulders. The tall candles (fake, lighter-fluid-fired candle-shaped things, with real flames) were carried perfectly symmetrically. The Bible that the priest read out of was encrusted with gold and gems, and featured an attractive portrait of Christ on the cover. The priest walked to the middle of the church to read scripture, and actually stood about 3 feet from me as he did, so I noticed that he didn’t actually read from the book, but from an ordinary A4 piece of computer paper paper-clipped to the page. I’m told the translation has been updated, and he was using the newer translation.
It had fabulous music. A local man apologized for most of their choir being on vacation, but the organist was also a cellist, who had arranged some cello concertos for the organ, and the lead singer had a fabulous voice – easily opera quality. The prayers were sung in English, but in such ornamented English that it took me a while to realize that.
I would have been just as happy without the incense. A guy carried around a censor, waving it back and forth, and by the end of the service I could easily see rays of sunlight in the thick smoke, even up near the (high!) ceiling. It was all sort of over-the top.
But I can see the appeal. It was a very rich, dense ceremony.
They didn’t have very good instructions for visitors, so I didn’t follow all of the service (and some of the words were hard to understand) but it seemed to be quite similar to Episcopalian services I have been to in the past, which is to say, also similar to a Catholic service. It was structured around three readings, punctuated by familiar prayers. One odd bit was that the second reading was done by some random middle-aged woman, dressed in business casual, who had been sitting in the pews. Everything else was completely male-centric, and the men were all dressed in ritual robes, not street clothes. In any other service I’ve been to, it would have been completely ordinary for a a random woman to walk up to the lectern (draped in brocade that matched the clergy) and read a passage of Bible. But it seemed weirdly out-of-place in this one.
When they passed around the collection plate I dropped in a two-quid piece, and later felt really cheap about that. 
The regular minister was on vacation, and the sermon was given by one of the 9 gentlemen I described. He was wearing black clerical robes (well neigh identical to academic robes you see at graduation) and spoke from the raised pulpit. The gospel reading had been about Peter walking across the Sea of Galilee towards Jesus, and the minster talked about how just as there was a storm on Galilee, the modern church was experiencing stormy times. He spoke of the challenges we face with society recognizing same-sex marriage, and the Anglican church accepting women as priests. He talked about how the Anglican Church had unfortunately followed the lead of Vatican II, and mentioned that THIS church was not technically in compliance with some of the modernizations the national Anglican leadership had endorsed. But, he went on, just as Peter was fine so long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, we would also be fine so long as we followed Jesus and concentrated on Him.
Then there was a little more to the service, and they offered communion, closing off the open part of the gate, and putting down cushions for people to kneel on. They offered both bread and wine, although I don’t remember the exact details.
And then they had an additional short service dedicated to Mary. To the left of the lectern, in the front, they had a smaller alter dedicated to Mary, complete with both a statue and a portrait. The clergy moved over there, and led “Hail Mary” and a few other prayers centered on the Mother of God.
When the service concluded, they invited me downstairs (past the sign that said, “private, keep out”) to a light luncheon, with wine and sherry. That’s when I felt really cheap about my 2 quid – they had sandwiches and quiche and salad and cookies – I’m sure just my meal cost more than I had given them. And I didn’t eat much. The people were quite friendly, and talked about the history of the church, why they chose it (most were not local, but came in from the suburbs to attend) and about why I was in town.
I can’t load mine, but I can probably link to a photo published on the internet. Let’s see if this works:
9/24/2014 Erev Rosh Hashanah at my Reform Jewish Synagoge
My synagogue is growing by leaps and bounds, and I went to services this evening, at the start of Rosh Hashanah, with about 500 of my congregation. That pales compared to the numbers I expect tomorrow, when there will be 2 adult services, a teen service, a “family” service (aimed at children who can read, and their parents) and a children’s service for the youngest members and their parents. The two adult services will both be much more crowded than this evening’s service.
The sanctuary is designed to be flexible. Usually, it’s a large square room, about 60 ft tall, but for major events (like the high holidays) the wall between the sanctuary and the social hall is removed, and the combined room is slightly more than twice as large. (Although the ceiling of the social hall isn’t nearly as tall, so the combined room has a funny appearance.) There’s an ark, the structure where the Torah scrolls are stored, in the center front of the main sanctuary. It is too heavy to move, but almost everything else is centered on the long eastern wall, and the chairs are arranged in big semi-circles around that point. (For regular services, fewer chairs are arranged roughly in concentric circles.) The whole eastern wall is windows, although you can’t really tell at night, but there’s a nice view, through wooden blinds, into a wooded area in the day. The one other ritual furnishing that can’t be moved is the “eternal flame”, which represents the burning bush through which God spoke to Moses, and also the lamp that was always kept lit at the Temple in Jerusalem. Ours is suspended from the ceiling in front of the ark, and is solar powered. (with batteries so it stays lit all night, of course.)
There is a large raised stage front and center (called the bima) where the service-leaders stand, and on it there is a large table designed to hold a torah scroll, and a smaller table for other ritual objects. Tonight, that smaller table held a cup of wine, candles, and a large antelope horn (a symbol of the holiday.) The stage also had a pair of large flower arrangements, one on either side, all white flowers. In the back were two flags, the US flag a few inches higher than the Israeli flag.
This year, we got a new piece of ritual furniture, a small, portable ark, so the torahs could be housed in the center of the bima instead of way off to the side for the holidays. It was towards the back of the bima, behinds the large table.
We also have a lot of new clergy. We now have a senior rabbi, three junior rabbis, a cantor, and an assistant cantor. There were a few times when all of them were at the table, but other times, just 2-3 would be there, and the others sat, the cantors with the choir (seated “with” the congregation, but in a group in the front, stage right) and the rabbis with their families in the front row of the seating, mixed in with other people in that row.
The temple wasn’t so large when I joined it, and it feels a little odd to have so many clergy knocking about.
The service started off with a song that has nonsense words. We have a lot of those (the words are typically “lai lai lai”) and the purpose is to let everyone sing without needing to know the song or read. It works, and the congregation stopped talking and swayed to the music. After another song and some administrative stuff, the senior rabbi asked us to greet one another, and then he asked his wife to light the candles, and the main service began.
Most of our prayers are sung. I was seated between two people who used to be in the choir, so maybe my impression was biased, but it felt like a large fraction of the congregation participated. We use a lot of the same prayers for the high holidays as for ordinary Sabbath services, but the tunes are different. And there are always a few new tunes that the cantor introduces for holiday. Using music from various traditions is very “in” in Reform Judaism these days. The cantors teach the new tunes, so everyone can sing.
In addition to singing, we have instrumental music. I think only Reform Jews do that, since in general more traditional Jews avoid playing instruments on the Sabbath. The cantor uses a (miked) acoustic guitar, and with the chorus we had a piano, a cello, a bongo drum, a sort of recorder-like thing, and something that I didn’t see that sounded like little bells, or maybe a metaliphone.
After the candle lighting, the congregation prayed “open my lips, that my mouth may declare your glory”, and several prayers about the glory and greatness of God. There are are a couple of prayers specific to this holiday. One is a list of requests to “Our Father, Our King” (said in Hebrew, to avoid the male-biased words in English. When I was a kid, we read the whole thing in English.) asking for peace and strength and joy and mercy in the new year. There’s also the prayer for the new season (said for new months, new babies, the start of long holidays, and of course, new years) and a little bit of other “New Year” content, although there’s much more in tomorrow’s service.
We prayed for the nation (for peace, for wise leaders…), prayed to the God of our ancestors, prayed to the creator of everything, declared that there is only one God, and a bunch of other regular weekly prayers, as well.
Then one of the junior rabbis gave a sermon. He spoke well, but he chose an unusually banal topic for a major holiday – he talked about how we ought to connect more in person and not just electronically. Given that the median age in the room was probably 70, and most of them probably don’t know how to text, it seemed like a wasted sermon. (I saw people from age 13 up, maybe even younger, but the room certainly seemed to be weighted towards people a generation older than I.) My daughter points out that people her age have heard that sermon dozens of times, and don’t need to hear it again. Another friend said, “it might have made sense 8 years ago, when this was fairly new, but now we have generations who communicate in different ways, and the compelling question is how we can all work together, not why you need to put down your phone.”
After that, the mourners in the room (those who have lost a parent in the last year, another close relative in the last month, or are remembering the anniversary of a death) were asked to stand, and then the whole congregation stood to join them, as we recited the Kaddish together. It’s an odd prayer. It is very old, and in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. It is recited by mourners, and that’s how people think of it, but it is simply a declaration of the greatness of God.
Then the senior rabbi reminded us of the temple’s annual charity drive, and urged us to give (on line) to one of the community services the temple supports, the assistant cantor chanted the blessing over the wine and sipped from the glass, and then he led us in another prayer-with-mostly-nonsense-words, and the service ended.
In the nature of giant congregations that one doesn’t attend often, I met a couple of friends that I didn’t realize were members as I left, so that was nice. 
4/14/2013 A non-denominational megachurch
First, I don’t know if there’s a definition of “mega church” but this is a very large, non-denominational Christian church, and that seems like as good a description as any. Second, to those of you who claim that religion is linked to stupidity or something, the friends I went with are scary-smart. He’s a well-known computer scientist with a long page in wikipedia. She, professionally, is a wife and mother, but she she has a physics degree from a hard-core university, knows about six languages, and is one of those people who quietly runs the world on a volunteer basis. (Sheba, she does some work on a volunteer basis rather than for pay because she feels that makes it easier for her to say “no” to specific assignments that interfere with other stuff she wants to do.)
Anyhow, we were a little late, so we walked in after the congregation had begun to sing. An usher directed us to three seats together in the back of an enormous room, and we stood and joined the song, whose words were displayed on two large screens.
The room looked a bit like a lecture hall. It is square, with the focal point in a corner, a slight incline to aid visibility, and a large balcony overhead. I was told that the room seated 1100 people. It appeared to be quite full – I didn’t see any other places we could have sat together, at least on the ground floor (and we had walked past several doors after peeking in, before entering the one where we did find seats.) There’s also a more casual “overflow” space where people can bring their coffee or let their kids run around, and there is ALSO a satellite location, where the service is transmitted live by satellite to another large room a few miles away. And they have two services every Sunday. They said they had 6000 worshipers for Easter.
The main sanctuary has comfortable stadium-style seating, and no windows or outside distractions. In the corner there was a small, plain cross, about 3’ high, suspended by wires. It was flanked by four panels of abstract stained glass, lit from behind by light-bulbs, I presume. In front and below that was the 6-member contemporary band, and in front of that was a lone microphone, used at various times by the guitarist, some woman who talked about administrative stuff, some guy who asked the congregation to donate, and the pastor. There were some chairs behind the band, which might have held a small choir, but they were never used during this service. Overhead, one on each of the walls (outside of the stained glass), were large screens where the words to the songs were displayed. Architecturally, it was quite dull, and the only decorative touch was those stained glass panels.
Curiously (to me) the songs all had attractive backgrounds. Rolling clouds, views of sunrises and streams and a stone cross in a meadow – that sort of thing. But when they put up scripture, the background was just white.
The church is in a very white neighborhood, and I was struck by the diversity of the congregants. They were mostly white, but much less so than the surrounding town, with a lot of black and hispanic faces. There was also a lot of diversity of dress and grooming. I saw suits, t-shirts, a green mohawk, and lots of clean-shaven and neatly coiffed men and woman. They also worshipped in a variety of styles - more on that later.
We started with a praise song, listened to some administrative stuff, (welcome to visitors, here are some activities various groups are up to, that sort of thing) sang another song, had a pep talk about all the great stuff the church was doing, and why we should give money, another song (while they passed around a LOT of collection plates) and that took about half an hour. We stood for the songs, and sat for the rest.
I sometimes join a Christian congregation in song and prayer, depending on what they are saying. I noticed that there was a much higher ratio of “stuff I won’t say” than there had been at the Easter vigil. Lots of very explicit references to Jesus dying for us and being resurrected and such. They did mention that it was still Easter season, and they were continuing in that theme.
Then we had the sermon, which took about half an hour. The pastor was, not surprisingly, an excellent public speaker. He talked about the need to have purpose in your life. Not just short-term goals, etc. The sermon was completely non-political, and in contrast to the praise songs, there was nothing in it that I couldn’t have said in a public presentation if I had some reason to speak on that sort of topic. And I think almost anyone with any tolerance for religion at all would feel the same way. Well, he cited scripture and talked about the apostles finding purpose from Jesus, I suppose, but in what I would call a historical sort of way. He also referenced a popular movie. Whenever he referenced scripture, the verse was displayed on the screens. I need stronger glasses, but I found all the words quite legible. This congregation knows how to be accessible. There are also, between the two services, translations available in sign, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, and another couple of languages that I don’t recall.
Then we stood for another song. It occurred to me that not only was the music pretty good, it was also rather diverse in style. The third song was very jazzy, the fourth (later) was influenced by folk.
Next up was an older (maybe 60) man who had just found Jesus. He spoke briefly about his coming to the faith, and the pastor asked him how it had changed his life. He talked about how it had given him patience, and an understanding of how important it was to treat every person with respect, and how this had improved his business dealings – people like doing business with him because he is fair and respectful. The pastor said another few words, we stood for the final song, and the service ended, having taken only about 75 minutes.
There was no communion offered that day – they offer communion on the first Sunday of each month, but my friend organizes the distribution of communion, so she is too busy to play host on those Sundays, and I suppose I won’t ever see how they do that. They must just pass it through the aises, though, as there’s no way that many people could file up to receive it in any “central” way.
There were a couple of brief formal “prayers” (as distinct from the songs, which were also very prayerful) interspersed throughout. We prayed for Rick Warren and his wife, and there was some sort of generic prayer for ourselves, and maybe some others. These were said standing, and most people bowed their heads.
About the diversity of worship – Some people stood when most of the congregation sat. During some of the praise songs, several people (mostly young women) held one hand up in the air, palm facing the cross. During one of the songs, one person was moved to raise both her arms in exultation and sway to the music. All while most people just stood quietly and sang. I didn’t see anyone kneel, at any point in the service, though. I understand most of that, but was puzzled by the “one hand up” thing. Is anyone familiar with it?
On the way out, my friends showed me around the rest of the building. I was curious to see that the congregation started as a tiny chapel, about 30 years ago, and has just kept growing. It has clearly found a popular niche. In addition to the very easy-to-attend worship service, it offers a number of other services, from a giant nursery school on the lower level of the building, to youth group facilities that include a full basketball court, to a large, attractive cafe, to a number of missions to other countries that sounded like perhaps a fun way to mix travel with helping others. The building also had a lot of smaller spaces for private worship or small services, like a family funeral or perhaps a baptism. Hmm, I wonder how they do baptisms. They also offer an adult Sunday school after the services, but we left and went to lunch.
a response:
Protestants don’t kneel. Don’t know why, they just don’t. 
The one hand up thing is pretty common though. I think it’s just a way to show and maintain focus on the worship purpose of the song itself. Symbolically reaching up to God/Jesus as they sing.
This sounds like a pretty typically mega-church Sunday. In order to grow like that you have to maintain accessibility and marketability to a broad base. Some people are turned off by this because they think these churches are not focused enough on the hard-core aspects of the religion. To each their own. These churches tend to offer LOTS of community, which I see as one of the few positives of religion. Still not my cup of tea though.
another reply:
As for the raising of hands/arms, it is an act of surrender. It’s not meant to be showy in any way. It’s quite freeing to do so - once you have thrown off the hindrance of self-consciousness.
I doubt that it is a regional thing but rather the norm for Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. Not everyone will do so, but many will
10/12/2014 Small non-denominational church
I went to a small, non-denominational, evangelical church today with a friend.
Services started at 9:30, and she suggested we meet outside the church at 9:25. That was plenty of time to have our choice of seats in the cross-shaped sanctuary, which held perhaps 140. Despite that, the place was nearly full when the service started a few minutes later. People were dressed casually, mostly in neat jeans and “business casual” tops. I saw one sweatshirt and one suit jacket. As people filed in, the band (in the “top” of the cross) warmed up.
The band is quite good. The leader of the band is called the worship-leader, which seems appropriate, because the only prayers the congregation says are the songs. They project the words on the wall, and the songs are slow enough (and have enough repetition) that everyone can join in. Most do, although most sing quietly.
The service started with a few songs, most of which I, as a Jew, was comfortable singing. I think there were four, and I left out one line of one song, skipped one song, and sang all of the other 2. The imagery was different from what I am used to. There was more visceral, or vaguely sexual imagery relating to God (“God, have your way in me”, some other stuff I can’t remember verbatim) than at most services I’ve been to. I also noticed that they prayed “May I give God my spirit”, where we (Jews) would say “My spirit belongs to God” (so let me try to do the right things with it…).
Then the pastor, who had been sitting in a pew near the front, got up and welcomed us all to the church. He specifically welcomed visitors, and said that visitors should not feel like they had to contribute to the offering. (My friend had said the same thing to me when we were settling in. So I didn’t contribute, although I felt a little odd about that.) He made some announcements, mostly about fellowship and ministry. There was a push for people to sign up for a couples program, and some stuff about some youth programs. Then he introduced a woman who was obviously well-known to the congregation, and she talked about the logistics of their Christmas shoe-box program this year. (The church puts together shoeboxes of Christmas gifts for needy children, which are sent around the world.)
After that, the woman prayed for the success of the various ministries, as the congregation bowed their heads and offered an “amen”.
Then there was an offering, which started with a prayer for how the offering would be used, and its hoped-for success. Only the leader spoke, but again, the congregation bowed and offered an amen. The band led another song, and a couple of guys walked through the congregation with collection plates. The guy who walked by me paused long enough that I could have given, but not so long as to be awkward that I didn’t. A lot of congregants give on-line, and perhaps half put something in the plate.
The church offers communion, but only on the first Sunday of the months, so that wasn’t part of this service.
Then the pastor delivered his sermon. This was the focal point of the service, and took about half of the total time. As he spoke, the band left the stage discretely, and came around and joined the congregation from the back of the room.
He sermon was focused on a handful of verses from Romans, and he talked about pride and humility, and how even people will low self esteem benefit from Christian humility. He talked about how we live in a consumer culture, and some people come to “get” a service, but we ought to be part of the body of the church, through Christ. He talked about the importance of taking on ministry, and joining the “small groups” the church organizes. I would have called the “small groups” study groups or classes. This church offers a wide range of small groups that meet to study and discuss various scripture-inspired topics. Some are for men, some for women, and some are mixed-sex.
One part of the sermon that interested me was that he talked about how we each have a measure of faith, and that measure varies from person to person, and it is a gift from God, and we should not be proud or ashamed of the measure we were given. He illustrated this with a set of measuring cups. But I think it is a profound truth that is not always recognized that different people have varying degrees of religiosity, and this may be the first time I’ve heard anyone talk about that from the pulpit.
After the sermon, the band came forward from the pews, and led a final song, after which the pastor gave a benediction as the congregation again bowed. We were all invited to coffee afterwards. The pastor walked out slowly, and greeted most of the congregants, as well as me.
My friend introduced me to several people there and we went to the coffee. I didn’t actually notice any coffee, but there was a wide variety of tasty pot-luck baked goods in a room that had advertisements for the various small groups posted on the walls. (there was probably coffee, too. I didn’t actually look for it.) I met a few more people, and talked with some of them about the small groups, and about my background before heading home. Everyone invited me to come back. My friend also invited me to come to a small group with her. I pointed out that that sounded like a commitment, and not like consuming a service. She suggested that while it is a commitment for members, it might not have to be for a guest, so perhaps I will do that.
1/19/2015 an Orthodox Jewish bar mitzvah
This is long, so I’ve added section titles. (so was the service, at about 3 hours)
Building and setting:
This Saturday I went to the bar mitzvah of the son of an Orthodox Jewish friend. The service was scheduled to start at 9. It’s common for people to drift in late to Orthodox services. I had planned to get there at the start, but was running a little late and decided not to rush. I arrived around 9:15, to find a large, roughly square room, with a low wall in the center separating the men’s side from the women’s side. It was opaque to roughly a women’s shoulder height, with clear plexiglas above that up to about a man’s shoulder height. There were separate entrances, with women entering a little behind men, to walk behind the men’s side into the women’s side. As I entered, I walked past a book case with prayer books and bibles, so I took one of each and found a seat.
The room was white, with lots of natural light, although all the easy-to-see windows are frosted so you can’t see in or out. The seating was mostly fixed, but with individual seats (sort of like a movie theater), made of an attractive wood with comfortable padding. The room seats perhaps 300-350, and the men’s side was about half full. The women’s side had many fewer people, maybe 20 at most. In the front of the room was the ark, sort of a large closet to hold the torah scrolls. It had both sliding wooden doors (open) and a curtain (closed) with a prayer on the doors, and a colorful pattern of ribbons covered with Hebrew letters on the doors, which was continued (without the letters)
on the curtain. Above the ark was the eternal flame, a symbol of God’s omnipresence, this one looking sort of like an upside down horn, or an ice cream cone, with light emerging from within. In front of the ark was a small stage (called a bima) with a lectern, and in front of that was a large flat table. Most everything except reading the Torah happens at the lectern. The table is used to open up the Torah and read it.
Morning Service:
I tried to follow the morning service, but they flew through the Hebrew, and I couldn’t keep up. Sometimes the cantor mumbled. When the congregation read, everyone read at a slightly different speed, so the resulting cacophony was indecipherable. (That part is typical of Orthodox and Conservative Jews praying.) There are also long stretches that are read silently, or read very quietly, with everyone mumbling under their breath. I joined in for a couple of the prayers that I know by heart, but gave up reading the book.
People continued to trickle in during the morning service, and by the time they finished, at about 10 minutes of 10, the men’s side was comfortably full, and the women’s side perhaps half full. That’s REALLY fast to get through the full morning service, in my experience. Reform services truncate it significantly, but Conservative services usually take longer.
Torah Service Intro:
Then the Torah service began. A Torah is the five books of Moses written by hand onto a leather scroll, which is wrapped around two wooden handles, or spindles. Writing one takes about a year of skilled labor, and they are important and valuable ritual objects. One of the four Torahs was removed from the ark, to song (the same prayer my
congregation uses, set to very similar music, but spoken faster. ) The Torah was “dressed” in a velvet robe with a sliver pointer on a chain hung over one of the handles, and like most Torahs, this one was also ornamented with a silver breast-plate (draped over the front) and a pair of silver crowns (atop the handles.) It was paraded around the
men’s side of the room, so all the men could touch it with the corner of their prayer shawl (after which they kissed that corner.) The people walking with the Torah returned to the table by way of the separating wall, and many of the women reached over the wall to touch the Torah with a corner of their prayer book, which they also then kissed. Then the rabbi talked a little about this week’s Torah portion (there are two standard cycles, and Jews everywhere in the world follow one or the other of those, so everyone read the same part of the Torah on the same day.) It was about the plagues in Egypt, and the rabbi related that to Martin Luther King day, and how change takes time.
Dress Code:
This is a good time to mention what people were wearing. The men were mostly dressed in suits, in shades of gray and black, and wear a large prayer shawl over their jacket. They also wear a kippah (yarmulke in Yiddish, or beanie in English) The Israeli flag is a stylized Jewish prayer shawl. The women all wore skirts, mostly skirt-suits. Most of the colors were subdued, but there was a lot of purple. Married women (most of the women there) also covered their hair, mostly with a wide variety of hat. I saw berets, caps, even fedoras*, and lots of things I can’t describe. Some were ornamented with ribbons or bows, and some were completely plain. Most of the hats had a low profile, though. That is, the top didn’t extend much above the woman’s head, and the brim (if there was a brim) didn’t extend much beyond her face. I couldn’t see the men’s footwear, but the women wore very practical shoes. Some had comfortable-looking boots, others wore walking shoes or a variety of athletic footwear. I suppose that’s because they all walk to the building – Orthodox Jews don’t drive on the Sabbath. That’s probably also why several of the women had leggings on below their skirts.
Core Torah Service:
After the torah was brought to the table, it was undressed, and opened enough to make sure it was rolled to the right place, then it was rolled up and covered with its “undershirt” for some prayers. A man was called up (in Hebrew) to read the blessing over the Torah, then it was uncovered, opened up, and the bar mitzvah boy chanted the text. Members of the congregation could read along in the Bibles. Bar Mitzvah kids usually spend a lot of time learning their torah portion, and do a good job of chanting it, but this boy chanted unusually well, and had a lovely voice. This was repeated several times, with a variety of men being honored by reading the blessing over the Torah, ending with the father, and then the bar mitzvah boy himself. We took a break in the middle to recite a prayer of healing.
After the Torah was read, it was held up open so everyone could see the text, and then wrapped up and put in its own seat, by the side.
Then the bar mitzvah boy talked about his Torah portion. He spoke about how people see patterns, and how the religious say all the plagues as being a sign of God, but Pharaoh probably thought they were a series of unfortunate (natural) events. He illustrated his point about seeing patterns with large posters showing a stylized face, and the same elements (a large circle, two small circles, and a line segment) in a different, non-face-like arrangement. (Most of the service was pretty standard. This part was very unusual.) After that, he thanked various people, and then the rabbi spoke a bit again, and the father spoke a little, both about the Torah portion and some thanks to the various people who had helped.
During the end of the Torah reading, children had been walking around passing out soft candies the crowd. Girls on the women’s side, boys on the men’s. As the bar mitzvah boy finished his talk, he was pelted with candies, which flew everywhere and were gathered (and eaten) by younger children. Most of the candies ended up on the boy’s side, of course, but a lot were thrown back the girls and the girls for some, too.
Additional Stuff:
(after the Torah Service)
Then some more prayers, and the bar mitzvah boy read some of the non-Torah bible (called the Haftorah, a selection chosen hundreds of years ago to complement the Torah portion.) and yet more prayers. I knew most of these, and was able to join in. By this point, the men’s side of the room was packed, and the women’s side was comfortably full of people. Then the Torah was put away, and the ark fully closed.
There were a bunch more prayers. I took a bathroom break at this point, and found a line in the ladies room. One woman said someone about the Mussaf stretch. (the name of that part of the service.)
The final prayers were for the president, VP, and other leaders of the US, for US servicemen, and for the safety of the state of Israel. Then another guy came to the lectern. He offered congratulations to the family and to other congregants who had good news, condolences to those with deaths, and some administrative stuff about the rest of the services for the day. Either before or after this, the father went to the lectern, poured a glass of grape juice, blessed it, and drank.
End & Reception:
After that, we filed out of the sanctuary, and men removed their prayer shawls. There was food and drink offered in another room. as we entered that room, there was a station for handwashing, with both practical and ritual supplies (sinks, hand sanitizer, and two-handed cups used to ritually wash hands.) We had a light repast. We were also invited to a more substantial lunch a little later (and more parties later in the day and evening) but I had other stuff I needed to get to, so I found the father, congratulated him and chatted bit, and took my leave.
Very cool, thx!
4/12/2015 A Unitarian Universalist Worship Service
It occurred to me that I’ve been to a lot of funerals and weddings at UU churches, but I’ve never been to their regular weekly worship service. Today seemed like a good day to set that right.
The UU church was formed from a merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists. As best as I can tell, the Unitarians won the name, but the Universalists got the theology. The joke is that Unitarians are the people who believe in no more than one God, but these days, the UU churches welcome wiccans and other flavors of polytheists as well as Christians in their flock. Broadly, they believe that there are many paths to salvation – a belief I share with them. So it did seem to be high time that I visited a church.
I got there and discovered that the door-greeter was a woman I have worked with on political campaigns, so she invited me to sit with her and her husband, in the very back, since she was helping to run the service. The sanctuary is a large room, with walls of brick and glass, with caramel-colored wooden pews, wooden arches, and a wooden vaulted ceiling. In short, it looked very much like many local churches, except for the lack of a cross. In the center of the front wall was a large stained glass medallion that I think showed the 12 signs of the zodiac and some leafy decoration. Below that was a small side table (the alter, I guess) with a lectern to one side and a chalice to the other. The chalice looked sort of like an oil lamp suspended by two large metal circles. (vertical, like a bicycle wheel, but not that large.) In front of the chalice was a piano , and in front of the lectern was an area with unlit candles. Behind us was an organ, out of sight, but very present in the service. That’s about it for ornamentation. Attractive but austere. The clergy wore black robes with colorful scarves that looked very much like Jewish prayer shawls. There were perhaps 50 worshippers in a room that would easily have held 250.
It was, perhaps, an awkward time to attend, since it seems to be the launch of their capital campaign. After everyone settled in, one of the clergy welcomed us, especially welcomed newcomers (hi!!) and talked a little about the capital campaign and other church business. (thanks to those who helped with the dinner, children’s services, upcoming fair, etc.) We sang a hymn to the organ, and then the organ stopped and the congregants continued going in a round. This hymn, like others at the service, was notable in having no reference at all to God.
Then the female cleric lit the chalice, saying it was a symbol that joins all the UU churches in the world. And we sang another hymn, and then greeted one another.
The community shared “joys and sorrows”, there was a brief reading (of someone I hadn’t heard of) and the congregation sang “Go Now in Peace” as the children and youth educator left the room.
Then it was time for the offering. We were again reminded of the capital campaign, told how to make out checks, and four members of the congregation (including my friend) took brass plates to the front of the room, and collected offerings as they walked towards the back. The organ played as they did this, and kept playing for quite a while after I thought they had finished and left the room. Then they reappeared, 3 returning to their seats, and the fourth carrying the four stacked plates to the front of the room, where the male cleric took them and offered “thanks for these gifts” (using words familiar to me from traditional grace at meals.)
There was another meditation, silent this time, during which congregants were invited to come to the front and light a candle to commemorate joy or sorrow. I thought it rather interesting that they didn’t distinguish the people there in sorrow from the ones there in joy in any way.
Then we sang a hymn that seemed to nicely sum up the philosophy of the service:
No caps in the hymnal, and I believe the song was meant to refer to each other, and not to any divine power.
There was a brief reading, and each minister gave a sermon. The man’s was very brief, on the topic of money. He started by saying “money is a force” and went on to say that power, sex, and wealth are three very powerful drivers of human behavior, so much so that many religions recommend asceticism, to hold this power (money) in check. But we (Unitarians) believe it can be a force for good, and that we should wield it to make the world a better place.
The woman gave a much longer and more personal sermon, talking about how poor she had been for several years after her marriage. She and her husband lived on charity for more than a year. (from family, friends, and from an anonymous benefactor they never did unmask.) And how now she can give money for good. And how some religions tell you they can give you wealth or salvation, but the UU only tells you how YOU can give those things to other people. (well, maybe not exactly wealth or salvation, but help, support, love, encouragement, etc. I don’t remember exactly how she put it.) She talked about giving enough to make you feel generous.
Everyone who spoke used quotes liberally. The quotes came from all sorts of sources, were usually brief, and sometimes just attributed to the author by name, other times the attribution included the faith-tradition of the author. The quotes came from a wide variety of faith-traditions (and non-faith sources) as would befit a “universalist”.
Then there was another hymn, they extinguished the chalice, gave a benediction (still God-free) and there was more organ music as people filed out. The ministers stood at the doorway, and hugged each member of the congregation as they left the sanctuary. They recognized me as a newcomer, and shook my hand and greeted me. Several people invited me to join them for coffee, so I did, and stood around and chatted with my friend and people I knew slightly from around town, nibbling on home made chocolate chip cookies and fruit. (They also had bagels and cream cheese, and some other more substantive food.) The grapes were especially good, and I commented on them to my friend, who turned out to have brought them. Counting the time schmoozing, I was at the church for about an hour and a quarter, maybe a bit more.
As I left, I noticed that the text of the longer sermon was left on a table, along with what I assume was last week’s sermon, which did, indeed, talk about Easter. But in an ecumenical sort of way.
4/19/2015 - A Quaker Meeting
I was running a little late, and got there with just enough time to shake hands with the guy who held open the (locked, urban) door and get directions to the restroom. I waited in line a bit to use the restroom (“Unisex. This bathroom is for EVERYONE”) which felt like a nice residential lavatory, with plenty of room to move around, and a cloth towel on a rack on the door, as well as a roll of paper towels.
The room that held the service was beautiful. Perhaps 20’x40’, and a little taller than it was wide. It had pews arranged in a rectangle around a central open space. The floor was old wide wooden boards, stained dark. The pews were oak, stained a warm golden color. The walls and ceiling were plaster, a little rough in texture, and colored sort of biscuit/cream, so the whole space felt warm and sunny. There was a large dark fireplace along one long wall, and a narrow balcony over the other long wall. The doors were under the balcony and in one of the short walls. The other short wall was dominated by a huge two-story window, with glass doors into a little walled garden. In the garden, a magnolia was just about to bloom, and there was some greenery further back.
I slipped into a pew just two minutes before the scheduled start of the service, facing the window. Everyone already there was sitting quietly. A handful of additional people came in, including two who sat in the center, and brought cordless microphones. All told, there were about 35 people in the room, mostly age 50-70, but some younger adults and one 6 year old child with a young woman. The pews were mostly full. The dress ranged from “nice casual” to tee-shirts and sweats. The older gentleman next to me was wearing a nice sports jacket with socks and birkenstock sandals.
The only sounds were muffled bird song, some creaks of the pews as people shifted position, an occasional loud breath, and some HVAC noises for a bit. The pews had some information, including instructions for visitors. It said that the service started with people “centering down in silence” as we collectively tried to experience God and to listen for the “still small voice”. We sat quietly for 15 minutes, and then the woman and child got up, along with one other adult, and left the room. Shortly thereafter, about 10 people, mostly young adults, and including the woman who had been with the child, filed in and found seats. (The website had mentioned something about child care, so I assume that’s where the kid went.)
We sat for another 15 minutes of silence. Many people closed their eyes. Some sat in postures that I associate with formal mediation. Some looked up, others seemed to be focused inwards. The overall feel in the room was of alertness and expectation. No one napped.
Then a young man behind be stood up. “Welcome, Friends”, he said. One of the people in front brought him a microphone, and he said he was visiting from across the country, and then spoke briefly of community, and how everyone needs community, and he prayed that we would all find community and the time and energy to support and nourish our communities. A young woman on the other side of the room looked towards the heavens, and I wondered if she might cry.
A few minutes later, and older man stood up. He waited for a mike, and then told a long and intensely personal story that I am not comfortable sharing. His themes were death, resurrection, joy after adversity, and the importance of love. He ended by referring to The Velveteen Rabbit, and how “love makes us real”. Then he prayed that some people in his story find love.
Several minutes later, a young woman stood up. She waited for a mike, and said that yesterday, a song was running through her head. It was a beautiful song, she wished she could sing it for us. It was about how windows opened, and if we sought God we would find God, and the chorus was “hallelujah”. And she loved the “hallelujah” part, and found herself saying of often, but wondered if she wasn’t looking hard enough for God. But she didn’t want to give up on the “hallelujah”.
Then there was quiet until about an hour had passed. Another woman stood up. She was there visiting a friend, and she echoed many of the things others had said.
After a little more time, the young woman who had been with the child spoke about the stresses within the community, about power and ego and sexism and classism, and … and how she hadn’t been able to get to sleep for 7 hours after some organizational meeting she’d been to, and asked that we all pray for peace and community.
Each of the 5 people who spoke ended by asking us to pray for something. It was a very God-focused worship meeting.
After a little more time had passed, the woman with a mike stood up, and shook the hand of the person closest to her, and said “welcome”, then everyone stood and greeted the people near them. We turned back to the service leader for the day, who introduced herself, and explained what would happen next. At some point she mentioned that the microphone didn’t amplify for the room in general, but was just hooked up to a sound system for the hard-of-hearing, and was something they had started using recently to be more accessible. “There would be announcements, then we’ll all introduce ourselves, and visitors should say where they are from. Some of us will say what pronouns we like (and she gave an example, introducing herself and her preferred pronouns) and then we’ll pass around the sign-up sheet for chores and there’s a collection box over there, and the library is here, the coffee will be there, and the rest rooms are over that way. And I think it might be nice if we sang the song that ____ talked about, if anyone can lead us?”
There was an awkward silence for a bit. Then a woman with a beautiful voice started to sing. A few phrases in, a guy interrupted her, and asked if the lyrics weren’t actually a little different. And then, rather to my surprise, the whole room sang the song. (which I don’t know, and don’t remember well enough to write down.) Once people got going, it sounded quite nice – lots of good singers in the room.
Then we went clockwise around the room with people making announcements. About half of the announcements ended with a request that the group pray for something. Maybe 10 people had announcements, (that is, nearly 1 in 4) ranging from info on some annual Quaker organizational thing, to the group’s new web site, to a sheep-shearing demo one member was participating and maybe others would like to come support this other group with her. A trans-man said he would be speaking about his spiritual journey at some event (he assumed everyone knew the topic, and I didn’t work out what it would be about until listening to conversation later) and a guy said he might be moving. This sparked a second round of announcements (maybe 5 more) including wishing the mover well, and a guy who was presumably his tenant saying he was looking for new housing.
Then we went around the room, again clockwise, introducing ourselves. Nearly half the people there were visitors. About half of the members, and a handful of visitors said what pronouns they preferred. And the book of chores was passed around, and the leader-for-the-week read the chores that were needed for next week, including that someone to act as leader and someone to sign up for refreshments. The child returned, and someone introduced him and said it was his 5th birthday, so we all sang Happy Birthday, to him and to a woman who shared the birthday.
Finally, everyone got up and mingled. I went in search of the restroom again, and when I got back, the refreshments had been brought into the center of the hall (except for the coffee, which was being served in another room.) A couple of people asked where I was from, why I was visiting, and where my spiritual home was. I think it’s the first time I’ve been asked about my spiritual home when visiting another congregation. This group seemed very used to having visitors, and in tune with that. Several of the visitors were Quakers from other parts of the country, but several talked about other types of services they went to, including Mennonites, Episcopalians, and others. I think there were some local people who went to both this meeting and another church.
As I read my description, it sounds a bit haphazard, but it was actually a very orderly and peaceful and spiritual meeting. If it were closer, I think I would like to return. About half the time I was there was the worship service, and about half was announcements and socializing. I left after about 2 hours.