Church visit: Bryn Mawr Presbyterian November 25

A country church in the city, this was my overall impression of this church. Even thought this church is located just outside of North Mpls. I had never seen it before or thought about visiting it. Last night as I was thinking about where to worship today, I looked at their website and realised it was close to work, so not to hard to find and not to far to drive to. The only things I knew about it were that Jamie Schultz was the pastor who I heard preach years ago when she did her neutral pulpit sermon at Plymouth for the Byrn Mawr church ( don't think I was working there at the time, just happened to visit Plymouth on that Sunday). Also I knew the Cedar Lake Seven group came out of Bryn Mawr and that it was a small church. Today when arrived ( late, which is something i need to work on) I was surprised at how many others were arriving at the same time, maybe I wasn't late and the service started later than I thought, entering the church I was greeted and handed a bulletin and realized there were in the middle of announcements, I was late but had not missed much. The announcements were done by members standing up where they sat and giving their announcement from there, it was a small enough space this worked for the most part, one person asked a speaker to speak louder and repeat what they had said. The size and feel of the space was almost country church like, and the fact that there were about 75-100 people there added to this feeling. The lay worship leader was not at a lectern and seemed to have more freedom and involvelemt in the service than most lay worship leaders in Presbyterian churches have. He even did a nice quick reflection on rights of passages and related it to a young man who was turning thirteen this week and his father invited him to carve the turkey this year. There was no prayer of confession, but instead a prayer of honesty, I like this slight change in wording. Singing the hymns I noted they do not have the blue Presbyterian hymnal, whats up with so few churches that use this hymnal? Being Christ the King Sunday the first hymn was a familiar hymn, think the title might have been different than I was used to and it bugged me that the hymnal changed the words "Crown him" to "crown creator" maybe the PCUSA hymnal is not gender correct enough for this church. Jamie did a nice job with the time for children talking about Christ the King Sunday and how " Christ" is not Jesus's last name, but means anointed one. I expected her to speak in gender neutral terms after the hymn, but she used him, and he when referring to Jesus. Her Sermon expanded on Christ the King Sunday and it's role as end of the church year and tied it in with the end of the calendar year. It was a good sermon and was nice to hear someone preach about Christ the king Sunday in this way. The offering was unusual in the sense that as small as the space is the plates did not get passed down rows, but people were able to reach them on the end of the rows even if seated in the middle of the rows. The Doxology while it used the three parts of the trinity, did not have father, son, but instead Creator, Christ and was a more upbeat tune than I was used to. The worship leader asked for prayer requests and people raised their hands and shared and then he did a nice job of repeating them for all to hear. During this time a woman lit candles( votives) on the communion table from the communion table candles for each prayer request, this reminded me of the Catholic prayer candle tradition and seemed a little odd. Instead of a prayer following this time, we sang a song in response. The lord's prayer- they had Father/mother on the first line, to me this a bit much and is going a little too far with pc language. After the service i introduced my self to Jamie, we have talked on the phone and via email but had not met previously. I also talked with clerk of session who approached me as I was talking to Jamie. She shared that she was impressed with he number of people in worship on the Sunday after thanksgiving and that while they are a small church do not have a lot of Gray haired people and have a lot of children. I asked how many live in the neighborhood as on their website they describe themselves as a neighborhood church. She did not know but guessed 50%, my sense is it is higher than this. while I think the size and feel of the church building reminded me of a country church, I think there is an energy there that shows it is much more than that. I do feel however that from the announcements to the prayers of the people it feels like a close knit small community which might be very appealing to some and hard for others to feel welcome.

Illnois quick trip November 10-11

This weekend I traveled with my family to Illinois to celebrate my Uncle Foof's 70th birthday. We drove about 6 1/2 hours each way and were there from about 4:30 pm Sat. to 10:30 am Sun. so we were there slightly longer than we were in the car. My Uncle Foof ( his real name is Philip, but one of his brothers could not say Philip and called him Foof and the name has stuck) is about a year younger than my dad and the second child ( my dad the first) in the La Salle Dobovsky's. Not only does my uncle have a unique name, he is a character, so Sat. night was a fun night of "roasting" him, heard many stories that have been told over and over and a few new ones. The celebration was held at an Italian restraunt in Illinois Valley that like all the best places in the area is known for it's fried chicken. After the celebration, my brother and I joined some of our cousins and Foof's partner Ski & his wife at a local bar, that was the place to be in La Salle/Peru but was a true hole in the wall, longer than it was wide and very few tables & chairs. It was fun hanging out with our cousins despite the smoke filled room (Il is not smoke free until Jan 1). I remembered bar close at 2am when I lived there but seems there is a newer law that keeps them open until 3am on Sat. night, we left the bar at 2:30 am and then stoped at the IHOP next to our hotel so it was a late night. I am bumbed I am not going to be at the Dobovsky thanksgiving this year at my cousin's home in San Fransico due to the cost of the trip and my limited funds. On the way out of town we drove by the home my dad grew up in (surprised it is still there with all the land it is on and how small it is)and then the cementary where my dads ashes are buried next to his parents. It was the first time I had been there since I missed gradmas funeral ( I was in Ohio at the time) and the time when my dad's ashes were buried (don't remember why). It was interestering as my Dad's marker was in between his parents and next to three trees.

Worship at Westminster- Minneapolis Nov 4,2007

So I finally worshiped at Westminster, following the suggestions of my mother, and others to check it out. When trying to decide where to go this week after not having worshiped in a church for a while I stumbled upon two things on the Westminister website that caught my attention. First I saw that Meghan Gage the associate pastor for children, youth and families are giving the sermon. I had lunch with Meghan back in September to talk about youth ministry in the Presbytery and had talked with her at the middle school Clearwater retreat a couple of weeks ago. It is always fun to hear someone preach that you know. The second thing was it was Children's Sabbath Sunday at Wesminster, I have heard of churches that celebrate this Sunday but am not sure if I have been to one before. I was a little Surprised that Meghan was preaching as I thought she would be up at Clearwater with her Senior High group for the second fall Sr High retreat, so I emailed her to double check if she truly was preaching this week. She confirmed that she was and suggested that was not a "typical" Sunday at Westminster. My sense is a "typical" Sunday worship service is ok, but I enjoy when things are different and I wanted to experience Children's sabbath Sunday even if it was not a "typical" Sunday. So with that introduction on how I chose Westminster this week, on to my thoughts about the service.

I read on the website how to get to the church and where to park for free downtown, after passing the parking ramp entrance I circled around the block and found a place to park in the ramp. I followed people from the ramp into the church and was very impressed by the signage and the music coming from the sanctuary which led me where to go. I was a little late and caught the tail end of the processional hymn. This is a unique Westminster spectacle that seems a little high church to me. The Sanctuary is very bright and grand, but after a while you tend to feel it a comfortable place of worship and forget a little about the size and wonderful architechtial details. I think the use of dimming the lights at various times helped with this feeling. One thing that was different at this worship service being Children's Sabbath was a time for adults. A representitive sample of adults were invited to come forward instead of children and the middle school youth led the time. It was neat to see some youth I met just a few weeks before, in this leadership role. One youth seemed familiar to me during the retreat and seeing her this morning I remembered who she was. It was Anne W. who when I was at North Como danced in the aisle during worship as she felt moved by the music. Her dad taught middle school Sunday school at North Como and her mom was very warm and welcoming to me when I first started attending North Como.

Following the time for adults there was a moment for stewardship and the pastor ( I think it was Byron Thompson) had two young people help him and talk about what ways programs there are part of benefit from stewardship pledges and then about what pledges are. Both children gave great answers some expected and some unexpected. I thought this was well done and a nice time in with Children's Sabbath Sunday. Following three scripture readings ( why three?, are these all of the lectionary texts this week?) Meghan invited children forward to join her for the sermon ( not the children's sermon). She did a wonderful job of sharing with the kids that she was going to be using art they might not all be able to see and reading a story with great pictures that they might want to come see after the service. I also liked how she shared that this time was going to be longer than the traditional children's time and they were free to go back to their seats with family if they wanted to. Meghan shared a great story about a girl who lived in the US and her grandmother lived in Palestine. The story talked about how this girl had great experiences while visiting her grandmother and then wrote a letter to the President saying she chose peace. During the story kids added pieces to the art work and then at the end Meghan described each piece (how each involved kids and then together they made up the image of Jesus). Following the sermon was the offering, then came communion.

I was curious about how they do communion as all churches do it the serving of the elements a little different. If St. Luke's communion was chaos this was the complete opposite, very orchestrated. I watched in amazement as the servers all moved to their starting spots and waited until they all got to their place then started serving. then after serving they met their partner and walked in pairs up to the front of the sanctuary.

while I enjoyed the service a lot I am not sure if is a place I would worship week to week, but could see myself going back from time to time. my mother says she enjoys worshiping there because it feels like home, I think this makes sense because it feels somewhat like her home church in Bismark. While I have nothing against a more formal/high church service it does not feel like home to me. I think this is because of my years growing up at Valley and the informality/suburb church feel it had. I noticed at Westminster that all of the male ushers and male elders all had suits/sportcoats and ties, I felt a little under dressed in my polo shirt and work khakis.

After worship I stopped in the fellowship space and saw a set of twin boys I had met up at Clearwater, I taught them how to read minds. They seem like great youth and one of them is very interested in baseball, when I saw him today he was pretending to be batting.

One thing I thought about today is if in writing this blog of my worship experiences, leads me to not truly worship and enjoy the experience as I think more about what I want to write about from the visit. On the other hand maybe I am more observant and pay more attention to things I would not if I was not writing about it in this blog.

I also think a big part of finding a church home is finding a place that feels comfortable, like home. When I started this journey I was not anxious to find a new church home, but am starting to think I would like to find a church home to attend most Sundays and spend one or two Sundays a month visiting other churches. A sense of being grounded but also experiencing other churches.