A Tale of Two Churches

As mentioned before, we recently visited our “home” church in Groton, Connecticut: Bishop Seabury now-Anglican Church.

They were evicted from their church building in early August and decamped to a local hotel for services. We visited on the third Sunday in their new locale.

The service was set up in a lovely ball room, padded chairs facing a makeshift altar. The processional came in, as always, with assistants in albs and the presiding priest wearing  the same white robe with a green stole about his neck.

We didn’t have the leather-bound Book of Common Prayer–apparently the books had to remain with the church building–but we did have the order of service and the songs printed on a stapled-together booklet.

We knew all the music.

I confess, even though we haven’t been official members of this church body in 26 years, I glanced around looking for familiar people. I knew the Venerable Rev. Ronald Gauss would not be there–we had emailed beforehand–but I was surprised at the number of people I did recognize.

And blessing of all–they recognized me!

I rejoiced when we said that morning, “let us go to the house of the Lord,” with the good folks of Bishop Seabury.

I sighed with pleasure to worship our God with them in an unfamiliar setting.

And we threw out arms about each other when our sisters and brothers in Christ welcomed us home.

Thanks be to God.

Oh, and the church body? They are doing beautifully. More than one said, “the church is the body of Christ, the fellowship of believers, the people. A building is just a building.”

Amen.

A week later, we were at a completely different worship service. At the recommendation of  friend Pastor Bill Giovannetti, we visited the Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Oh, my.

Bill pastors his own 4000 member Neighborhood Church in Redding, California, but he thought I might appreciate a glimpse of an even larger church. Since we regularly worship with at most 300 people, he was correct.

Their services aren’t held in a conventional building either, but when you have 16,000 members, you need a big auditorium.

Nowhoused in the former Carleton Theater theater, it featured a stage on which sat some 150 or so singers. The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir has won Grammy awards, and they were in full voice, though casually dressed, Labor Day weekend.

I’ve never attended a worship service with so many people–easily over a thousand–and the singing enveloped us with so many voices. With the choir on stage, the sound felt almost physical as it rolled towards us. I could practically feel my bones shivering!

In particular, “It is Well with My Soul” had such an enormous emotional element to it, I cried. The calling chorus–the choir singing “It is Well,” while we responded with the same,  reverberated with enormous power.

It was so well with my soul by the end of that, when Pastor Cymbala told us to hug the person next to them, I stretched for the beautiful black woman beside me and hugged her tight–leaving my tears on her cheeks!

Pastor Al Toledo from the Chicago Tabernacle preached to the point and practically on Romans 12, one of my favorite passages. I took notes!

We left the Brooklyn Tabernacle nearly as energized as we had left Bishop Seabury. It just showed us, that as the Bishop Seabury people know so well–it’s the people, the God, the worship, that is most important on Sunday mornings.

A building is just a building, but the body of Christ is the people responding to their God!

Amen!