Where two or three are gathered....
Today I led worship and preached to the congregation of the Steinway Reformed Church in Astoria, New York. All seven of them. We did not even have enough men to form a minyan for a prayer service in a Jewish synagogue. Three men, four women, and myself.
We did a full Service of Worship according the liturgy of the Reformed Church in America. We approached God in prayer and praise, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, the reading of the Law, and a responsively read psalm. Following my role as minister, I read the Scripture lessons and preached a full sermon based on the texts of the day. The third, and last, part of the Service included the receiving of an offering, the prayers, and the benediction. Each of these three parts contained a full hymn sung to the accompaniment of a piano. The entire Service lasted about 45-50 minutes before we retired to the church hall downstairs for coffee.
I could have said the experience was depressing. I could have lingered on the sad shape of the 1891 carpenter's Gothic wood sanctuary, a space where even the last gasp of its former glory long ago expired into the urban landscape around it. Everything about the interior looked ready to pack up and put on eBay. I could have allowed the past to suck what life remained in the present. But thankfully that never happened.
We sang the hymns lustily. The congregation responded with the responses as if they were part of the 350 parishioners that filled this hall in 1930. I preached because it matters. The pianist closed the Service with a very cool Gospel/Jazz postlude that got everyone leaving with a certain sense that God is still working in the world-even without the cultural supports of a society that used to go to church on Sundays. They asked me back next week. I'll eagerly go!
We did a full Service of Worship according the liturgy of the Reformed Church in America. We approached God in prayer and praise, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, the reading of the Law, and a responsively read psalm. Following my role as minister, I read the Scripture lessons and preached a full sermon based on the texts of the day. The third, and last, part of the Service included the receiving of an offering, the prayers, and the benediction. Each of these three parts contained a full hymn sung to the accompaniment of a piano. The entire Service lasted about 45-50 minutes before we retired to the church hall downstairs for coffee.
I could have said the experience was depressing. I could have lingered on the sad shape of the 1891 carpenter's Gothic wood sanctuary, a space where even the last gasp of its former glory long ago expired into the urban landscape around it. Everything about the interior looked ready to pack up and put on eBay. I could have allowed the past to suck what life remained in the present. But thankfully that never happened.
We sang the hymns lustily. The congregation responded with the responses as if they were part of the 350 parishioners that filled this hall in 1930. I preached because it matters. The pianist closed the Service with a very cool Gospel/Jazz postlude that got everyone leaving with a certain sense that God is still working in the world-even without the cultural supports of a society that used to go to church on Sundays. They asked me back next week. I'll eagerly go!
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