Traditional Funeral

Last night my wife Leslie and I went to a memorial service for a friend of her Mother. It was held at Christ Church, an American Anglican church in Plano. Many things reminded me of the Lutheran Church, and Anglican Churches I have visited in England.

We read from the Common Book of Prayer, recited both the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed, and we knelt to receive communion. The Christ candle was up front displaying the Alpha and Omega greek letters and a Cross. Candles were burning, and it was very hushed and reverent.

I don't find God missing in such services regardless of the repetition. In fact, so much Biblical truth is dispensed during a traditional service that the Homily (sermon) needs to be very good to impart something meaningful. Last night it was very good. I actually like traditional services and modern ones; God is in both because he promises to be wherever 2 or more are gathered in his name.

This morning I will get dressed and drive to my Church, a converted computer parts manufacturing building, to worship in a much more contemporary style, where the bulk of Biblical truth is dispensed in a sermon, not in a liturgy. Is this contemporary form of worship better? I don't think the question should revolve around a preconceived notion of spiritual quality. If it did, many of us would become Quality Assurance inspectors, placing our stamp of approval on services that meet our standards, rejecting those that don't.

God does not want us to be so narrow and limited. Think of Elisha who, after calling down fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice and winning a great victory over Idolatry, went into the wilderness to meet God. The Almighty did not meet him in the earthquake, nor in the mighty wind, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice. Elisha didn't met God at the temple that time, because God is not confined to the Jewish temple any more than he is confined to our places of worship.

So, let's practice finding him in the unlikely places.

What Church Tradition did you grow up in?

What kind of church did you grow up in? A high (formal) Church like Lutheran, Episcopal, or Catholic; or a low (informal) Church like Baptist or Bible Church?

Here is an excerpt from my Book describing when we changed from the Lutheran Church to a little GARB Baptist church. Please share your experience. Which one do you prefer, or do you think it doesn't matter?

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It didn’t take a genius to see that our new church was very different from the Lutheran churches I had grown up in. Too young to appreciate the theological nuances or glaring differences the clues I did pick up on were more subtle, but equally powerful. The lack of padded pews was the first clue and may have contributed to me pondering this more than I normally would. Those hard pews kept me awake during the much longer sermons that were common in our little Baptist church.

Churches even smell different. You know what I mean; they have a kind of smell, unlike any other building. Why they smell is a mystery, they just do. The more “other-worldly” they smell the more formal they are. At least I think so.

Our Lutheran church smelled of candles and red wine served with soft bread at the Eucharist. From a very early age I thought that all churches smelled like what stain glass windows would smell like if you could smell colors – rich, complex and vibrant. A Sunday morning at the Lutheran Church included the Lutheran prayer book, candles, and reciting in unison The Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s creed while the colors cast by the morning sun streaming through the windows danced across the sanctuary. The solemn chorus of voices in easy rhythm always seemed majestic and well, holy to me. The whole spectacle was fascinating and I never found it boring. Prim and proper was the order of the day; the pastor wore a majestic robe, and so did altar boys and the choir. Everything was so different from our everyday lives, almost other-worldly.

The arrangement at the front of the church, although not as complex as a Catholic Church, was robust and full of symbolism and mystery. There were two pulpits, one on the left and one on the right of the platform, where the scriptures would be read and we would be led to speak prayers and creeds in unison. In the middle was a big table on which sat a very big Bible. Banners often hung from the walls celebrating Easter or some other event on the Christian church calendar. Somewhere up front was the Christ Candle, a constant reminder that Christ was the focus. Sunday morning felt sacred, hushed and holy. The order, predictability, and majesty of the service awed and comforted me. The Lutheran church was a delight for the senses.

As rich, ornate and symbolic as the Lutheran church was, our little Baptist church was bleak and plain. The difference was like a Japanese Geisha girl in colorful silk robes standing next to an Amish school girl in button-less black and white. Plain was obviously a good thing here. Following that logic the walls inside our church were not painted any special color, and there were no stained glass windows. No banners, no decorations of any kind graced the sanctuary. The only splash of color was the red Baptist Hymnals. There were no candles, no long formal reading of the scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments, no creeds said in unison and few responsive readings. Like the building, the smell was completely different, as plain and simple as the walls enclosing us.

We dressed different too matching the plain and simple décor of our church. Modern fashion was kept at a distance in our new church. No hippies or long haired men with earrings and tattoos were allowed. Women wore their dresses to the middle of their knees and the men wore ties. No bell bottom or hip hugger pants, no shorts on women, no halter tops. Makeup was kept to a minimum with the admonition, “If the barn needs painting, then paint it.”

The focus of our service was not the Bible up front, or the Christ candle, or the readings from the Old and New Testaments. It was not stained glass, the altar or the baptistery. Instead, the focus was clearly on the preacher. In fact, everything in this little church emphasized an obsession with the preacher and his sermon. The pulpit was smack dab in the center, with a communion table in front. Nothing was allowed that would distract from the preacher and the sermon; except of course for the attendance board that informed us how many were in attendance last week. We obviously needed to know who was there or not. Christianity at our new church was stark; four walls and a sermon.