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."