Mark Sawyer Church Visit #3 - Immanuel Anglican

Mark Sawyer

Church name: Immanuel Anglican

Category: Liturgical differences

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

            The service is held in a gymnasium at a local school. The seating is amphitheater style, where the audience is seated above the speakers and music, rather than down below them. The flow of the service is more liturgical than I am used to, though I am comfortable with liturgy, and have even come to appreciate it in many aspects, as I attended an Anglican church for two years in the Netherlands. I have now attended Immanuel a few times, and I have slowly begun to catch on to the aspects of the liturgy particular to their church, such as musical interludes, antiphonal Scripture readings, etc. They also offered the Eucharist at the service I attended, which they do every Sunday, unlike my church back home. The prayers of the people are also a common element between Immanuel and my church background, though we do not have a responsive element at home.

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

         The physicality of the service was interesting to me. The Scripture readings were acted out as they were recited. The Eucharist was considered an essential element of the Sunday service, as it was rejuvenating to our physical bodies as well as our spiritual bodies. In addition, the Anglican liturgy involved a lot of alternating between standing and sitting, and channeling our worship through bodily motions, such as making the sign of the cross, the children receiving blessings by putting their hands over their chests in front of Father Aaron, etc. Presbyterians are notoriously unresponsive with their bodies in worship and in response to teaching (see this Babylon Bee article), so it was interesting to me to see bodies involved in worship in a service.

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

            The most disorienting aspect about the service for me was Communion. I was not sure what exactly the church believed in regards to Communion and transubstantiation, and I also did not understand all of the significance behind Father Aaron's preparation of the elements of Communion. There was a very specific way that he set up the Communion table, and I wished that I had understood why he did it that way. There were other times in the service where I did not know the significance of certain motions, such as making the sign of the cross or bowing briefly. While I did not feel disoriented, I would have been more fully engaged had I known the significance of all the actions.

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

          Immanuel, much like its parent congregation, Church of the Resurrection, emphasizes the presence and work of the Holy Spirit (likely more than a normal Anglican church would). The prayers and songs that we would sing would specifically identify the Holy Spirit for praise, petition, and thanksgiving. In addition, the Holy Spirit was emphasized as one of the primary ways that God worked in our lives, even in times when we were outside of the church during the week. In my church at home, the Spirit is certainly recognized as a member of the Trinity, but the full breadth of the Spirit's role in our lives and in the world is not emphasized.