Basye Peek- Church Visit #3

Basye Peek- Church Visit 3

Church name: Immanuel Anglican Church

Church address: 900 W Wilson Ave., Chicago, 60640

Date attended: 08/21/2016

Church category: More/Less Liturgical

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

            I attended the Sunday service at Immanuel Anglican Church, a church plant of Church of the Resurrection here in the city. The worship space itself is pretty different to any church I’ve regularly attended, as the church meets in the open, sunken auditorium of a local high school. Most of my churches have had their own established buildings or permanent spaces within larger buildings. Immanuel is only a few years old, and that also likely contributes to the less established nature of their space. The service is Anglican, and follows a traditional liturgical service structure. I’m from a non-denominational background, and both of my parents are Southern Baptist, so the liturgical style of worship is fairly foreign to me. The starkest differences would be the communal prayer and proclamation, the weekly communion, and the intensely structured nature of services, as seen in the detailed program bulletins given out and relied upon (quite heavily for me personally) throughout the whole of the service.

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

          I find a great deal of beauty and merit in liturgy. There is certainly value in repetition: whether or not at the moment you are speaking the words you truly feel as though you agree, forming the habit of affirming beliefs that hold true no matter how you feel at any particular time. Communal repetition also ought to bring a degree of communal closeness, as you affirm with your voices that you all believe the same basic elements of our shared faith and thus are confirmed in entering into deep, faithful community with those around you. I also admire the liturgical tradition of incorporation a number of the senses within worship services. While most of my background centers around the individual, heart experience without the “distractions” of beautiful cathedrals or incense or sitting and standing, I find it beautiful and life-giving to be reminded of God’s majesty, his grace, and our insufficiency through physical reminders like standing and kneeling.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

            Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the worship service at Immanuel is the opposite side of the coin of liturgy. While it can be a beautiful, communal habit of proclaiming truth to participate in liturgy, there is also an element of insincerity that can be present in liturgy. In having everyone speak that same words simultaneously, there is little room for personal reflection or responsibility to truly measure what you are saying. Instead, it is far easier to simply read the words off of the program while paying little attention to their meaning or significance than to truly weigh whether or not you mean what you are saying. Similarly, when taking communion, there is a habitual nature of taking communion each Sunday that can translate from a beautiful weekly confession and reminder of the reconciliation of our sins through Christ’s sacrifice, to a mindless habit to save face with your congregation. It was also disorienting to be in a high school with mostly African American and Hispanic students (as seen in the murals that surrounded the auditorium), but in a congregation that was almost exclusively white.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

            The worship service that Sunday centered around praying through the Psalms, and actually entered into an interesting dialogue with the practice of liturgy. The pastor discussed the importance of praying the Psalms, of seeing how the Psalmist experiences sweeping emotions of lament and joy, sorrow and victory, and that although our feelings are inconsistent, there is merit in praying through the Psalm’s not in spite of our feelings, but in concert with our diverse life situations. This struck me as not only a case for the Psalms but for liturgy, and was well illuminated by the unfamiliar practice of speaking liturgy that morning.