Second Lenten Sunday with the Anglicans

3/8/09

Our adventure this Sunday morning is one that Erik and I have been looking forward to for some time. It is not easy for us to arrange our schedules to be gone on a Sunday morning but the day has finally arrived when we are going to visit an Anglican church plant, Holy Cross Anglican Church, at their current meeting location at the Holiday Inn Express in Omaha. Here is a link to their very helpful website: http://www.holycrossomaha.net/

We've been looking forward to this because we both have an affinity for the Anglican church (I'll have to blog about this some other time). My heart has been broken for this worldwide Communion for the last several years as they are so divided on the very basic tenets of the Christian faith and it has been tearing at the soul of the Anglican communion - a church that has blessed the world with some of the greatest Christian thinkers and writers that the western church has known.

We arrived in time for morning prayers which is a liturgical reading of the daily office from the Book of Common Prayer (BOCP). I was quite proud of us for having purchased and brought along two very nice BOCP so that we would be ready to participate. Upon arrival we showed our prayer books to Father Novak when he welcomed us. He told us that the version we had was rather controversial and had been rejected by most of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Apparently I have a "liberal" version. Who knew?

Anyway, he offered us another one to use and we sat in the front next to Rev. Novak's wife so that we could follow along with her through the liturgy. This is our second liturgical service to attend and both times we found those around us very helpful in guiding us to the right places. They also had a VERY helpful guide in both the bulletin and one published just for visitors. They were certainly a very "visitor friendly" congregation.

This church sees itself as becoming a "hub" of churches to plant the historic Anglican faith in this area and to participate in a new reformation in this communion. To this I say a hearty "Amen" as it seems that the American Episcopal Church has strayed so far from the historic teachings of the Anglican Communion and the basic tents of orthodox Christianity. I am excited to begin to fellowship with this congregation of reformers! Some of them shared with me how they have left their former parishes due to the heretical doctrines being taught after having attended their entire lives. The rector made this statement: When Jesus builds His Church the gates of hell will not prevail against it...whether they be millions or just a few.

I did find that the liturgy moved too fast for me. What I was reading as we went through the BOCP was very meaningful, but because I was not familiar with it, much of it was lost on me. I think if I were to attend a church like this regularly I would want to read through the daily prayers BEFORE coming so that I could affirm them as an individual and then celebrate them with my fellow believers.

The sermon was packed with things that interested both Erik and I as much of it was an apologetic for liturgical worship. Here are just a few of the major points:

1. The Church is called to look back to what was given to her by God and not to "get creative with it." The pastor was making reference, certainly, to doctrine but also to the form of worship that was established at the beginning of Christianity. Christianity is an "offshoot" of Judaism which is a very ritualistic and liturgical religion. Jesus would have worshiped liturgically. Since early Christians were familiar with this form of worship it would seem that their early services were also liturgical.

2. He made the statement "those who believe you can't pray from a prayer book need to toss out their hymnals." (Sadly, I could inform him that many of us have done just that.) This was an interesting revelation for me. I regularly use my hymnal in my devotions...but I never really looked at it as a "prayer book" yet that is exactly how I use it. The words in my hymnal were written by someone else and yet have many times brought me to tears because they reflect my heart toward God. This gave me something to chew on as I consider the place of non-extemporaneous prayers.

3. He used Titus 1:4,5 to give a defense of apostolic succession. I will not articulate it as well as he did but it went along these lines: Paul ordained Titus, his "true child in the common faith," and commissioned him as a "bishop" of the island of Crete where Titus was to set the church in order and it was his responsibility, as a bishop, to appoint elders/pastors in the different cities. This shows that the early church had an ORDER of establishing churches. It was not done just because someone said, "Let's start a church and find ourselves a pastor and some deacons, etc." There is an unbroken chain of ordination throughout church history. He used the illustration that Al Gore may have believed himself to be a duly elected president in 2000 but he wasn't...because he wasn't part of an unbroken chain of men who had taken the oath of office regardless of what he believed. It is the same way with ordination. One can't simply decide to start ordaining people. He gave one of the best defenses of apostolic succession that I have ever heard.

4. He also addressed the "funny clothes" that priests wear. He describes them as a "uniform" that distinguishes the clergy much like a policeman wears a uniform to distinguish his availability to those around him. The uniform is interchangeable with any other clergyman and, therefore, keeps "personality cults" down to a minimum because you approach the clergy as an officer of the church not as "a man that you happen to like." This keeps people from identifying the church too readily with a certain man.

5. He also made an interesting observation with regard to the Church body: Rapid changes are usually a sign of a cancer not of healthy growth. Beware of any organization that constantly pushes "change."

All in all, he gave us a lot to chew on.

After the service, there was a fellowship brunch. Everyone was so very friendly to us. There were about 15 in attendance (this is a new church with no building of their own). The pastor took a full HOUR with us to answer questions and was very knowledgeable and personable.

Afterward, Erik and I enjoyed a leisurely lunch together and had some deep conversation about some of the things we had just heard.

I believe that we will be back to visit this new congregation. I am excited about what God is doing in this historic Church and I want to encourage this branch that is fighting for the "faith once delivered for all the saints."

Ash Wednesday at St. Cecilia's Cathedral

2/25/09

Today I attended my first Ash Wednesday service. I went to St. Cecilia's Cathedral in Omaha. I went alone as most everyone else was busy but I think that was the best way for me to attend. It allowed me to focus on the service and my own reflection.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season of preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ on Easter. Growing up in a "free church" denomination we do not observe Lent. My entire life I have experienced the "high" of Palm Sunday followed immediately by the "high" of Easter Sunday...with nothing in between. We waved palm branches one Sunday and the next time we met we celebrated the resurrection. But we never really observed what happened in between, at least not in an organized intentional way.

I have always felt Easter sort of "sneaking up" on me and I never felt prepared for it as I do for Christmas. We start getting ready for the celebration of the birth of Christ the day after Thanksgiving...not because it's a religious thing but because it's a cultural thing. We can't escape preparing for Christmas...it's everywhere around us. But Easter always seems to catch me by surprise because I don't prepare for it and look forward to it and anticipate it by the things I do in my home and church.

Anyway, here's just a few of the things I observed today during and after the Ash Wednesday service...

1. Ash Wednesday is a day that I intentionally repent of my sins and mourn the hurt that they have caused. Sprinkling ashes on the head is an ancient tradition that symbolizes repentance and mourning. I am familiar with this concept in the Old Testament writings. I appreciated the time given in this Catholic service to sit in utter silence and confess my sins to God. I like the liturgical concept of confession of sins before entering into worship. I think this is healthy. Far too often we come into a church worship service with no thought of what may be causing a blockage between our spirit and the Presence of God. As the placed the ashes on the forehead one of the things he said to each participant was "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." I need that message, not just today, but everyday.

2. Ash Wednesday is a day that I intentionally embrace the concept of humility. While I didn't participate in the application of ashes because I was not sure that it was for non-catholics, as I watched the others I did sense how "humiliating" it would be to stand before this huge crowd and allow my face to be marred with an ugly black mark. I had never identified the attribute of "humility" with "humiliation" but they are obviously very closely related. I have grown up in a culture that teaches me to "put my best face forward." That was not the lesson I learned here in this ancient ritual. What I was encouraged to do here was to publicly and visibly bear the mark of the Cross for all the world to see my identification with the sufferings of Jesus...even if it made me look odd and out of place. Some of the words whispered by the priest as he placed the ashes were "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." In other words, "Get over yourself."

3. Ash Wednesday is a day in which I begin a 40 day season of intentional self-denial. I am not trying to "earn points" with God. I am training my flesh to be in submission to my spirit. I am taking the money I would normally spend on a certain thing and giving it to those in need. I am intentionally taking extra time out of my day that I would normally focus on "feeding my fleshly needs" and putting that focus on communion with God. I believe that this practice of self-denial will develop my ability to say "no" to myself when things that I want are in conflict with the things that God wants.

4. Ash Wednesday is a day when I experience greater unity with other believers. Even though I didn't bear on my face the marks of the cross, as I went through the day I saw many others who did. When I saw them I felt a kinship with them...fellow believers who, on that day, had also taken the same vows to repent, to humble themselves before God and to fast. I found myself wanting to run up to each of them and talk and share our stories. Then I remembered that I had not taken the ashes...and I found myself wishing that I had. Perhaps next year???

While I am not ready to make participation in a service such as Ash Wednesday a requirement for Christianity, I do feel that my Easter season and my preparation for it were deeply enriched by attending this service today. Thank you to the congregation at St. Cecelia's Cathedral for allowing this protestant pentecostal girl to share in your services.

Quinquagesima - Sunday before Lent with the Lutherans

2/22/09

Today I have arranged things so that Erik and I are both free of responsibilities in the morning service at our church. It is the last Sunday before Lent...where shall we go this morning? We wanted to attend a new Anglican church plant in Omaha but got our map directions wrong and were not able to make it on time. So we settled on St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs. http://stpaulslutheran-cb.org/

St. Paul's is a Lutheran Church in the Missouri Synod. It doesn't have much to do with Missouri, other than being headquarted in St. Louis. It is smaller and more conservative than the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. We arrived just as they were getting started with the Christian Education hour.

Since Erik is 17, I gave him the option of attending a youth class but he chose to stick with me in the adult session. We met in a fellowship hall and it was very well attended. I noticed a variety of ages in attendance. We joined a table at the back and the people nodded their welcome since the class was beginning and they didn't want to interrupt the speaker.

Our teacher was the pastor, Rev. Nathan Sherrill. He was younger than I expected and led us in an opening hymn "The Son of God Goes Forth to War." This was a new one to me but the group sang it with gusto and it was easy to join in. Erik liked it.

The class was beginning a study on the book of Galatians and after opening comments from Pastor Sherrill it was announced that we would read the entire book together as a group with a volunteer leader for each chapter. I love the book of Galatians and after sitting through the other readings I decided to be quite bold and stood to read the sixth chapter. I was a little hesitant as all the other readers had been male and I was not completely sure, as a female, that I wouldn't be out of line but no one seemed to be bothered by a female guest participating in the reading. At least, if they were, they didn't mention it to me.

The pastor then opened up the floor for Q & A and I was very impressed with the biblical literacy of the class. The questions that were asked were thoughtful and I could tell that the group was accustomed to discussing meaningful topics. There was no cotton-candy, seeker-sensitive stuff here. These were mature believers looking to discuss and interact on principles of Scripture. I wasn't ready for the class to end when it did.

We went up to the beautiful sanctuary for the service. According to the bulletin, this was Quinquagesima - refering to the 50 days before Easter and being the first Sunday before the beginning of the Lenten Season on Ash Wednesday. This wasn't explained too well; I had to look it up. However, the theme of the service was outlined in the bulletin. I liked that. Sometimes church services seem to be a collection of organized chaos...I liked that the theme of what we were focusing on that day was easily available to me. The focus of the day was on the understanding that following Jesus in His death is what wins the battle against "the old evil foe." The hymns and the sermon all focused on "The Church Militant." Quoting from the bulletin: "Satan would love to orchestrate a theological lullaby in our church, but Christ's people can remain vilgilant." Honestly, I wasn't expecting to hear that in a Lutheran church at all. It's refreshing to be reminded that spiritual warfare predates C. Peter Wagner.

The other worshippers could see that we were rather "lost" in the liturgy and very graciously showed us which page to go to in the worship book. The lady sitting next to us was a German immigrant and was very enjoyable as a "pewmate." She spoke to us both before and after the service.

I noticed that they prayed specifically for members of the church who were in need...especially those who were sick or in the armed forces. I got the impression that this is done every Sunday. It's also good to be reminded that belief in the healing power of God predates the pentecostal movement.

We read quite a bit of Scripture and the sermon on the militancy of the church was well presented. I have heard us Pentecostals remark that the mainline churches are ignoring the scriptures but that was certainly not the case here. There was more scripture reading in this service than I am accustomed to. I liked reading together as a congregation. It made me feel like an active participant rather then just a passive listener.

The pastor took time after the service to speak with us personally. I like that. So many churches we are herded in and herded out and never speak to anyone resembling a pastor. This was not the case here. All in all it was a good morning and a great way to begin the Lenten Season.

The bulletin was full of activities to attend...some of which I was tempted to add to my already over crowded calendar. However, I let the idea of attending the pork and sauerkraut dinner go by the wayside...apparently there's still a lot of Germany in the Lutheran church.