Second Lenten Sunday with the Anglicans

Our adventure this Sunday morning is one that Erik and I have been looking forward to for some time. It is not easy for us to arrange our schedules to be gone on a Sunday morning but the day has finally arrived when we are going to visit an Anglican church plant, Holy Cross Anglican Church, at their current meeting location at the Holiday Inn Express in Omaha. Here is a link to their very helpful website: http://www.holycrossomaha.net/

We've been looking forward to this because we both have an affinity for the Anglican church (I'll have to blog about this some other time). My heart has been broken for this worldwide Communion for the last several years as they are so divided on the very basic tenets of the Christian faith and it has been tearing at the soul of the Anglican communion - a church that has blessed the world with some of the greatest Christian thinkers and writers that the western church has known.

We arrived in time for morning prayers which is a liturgical reading of the daily office from the Book of Common Prayer (BOCP). I was quite proud of us for having purchased and brought along two very nice BOCP so that we would be ready to participate. Upon arrival we showed our prayer books to Father Novak when he welcomed us. He told us that the version we had was rather controversial and had been rejected by most of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Apparently I have a "liberal" version. Who knew?

Anyway, he offered us another one to use and we sat in the front next to Rev. Novak's wife so that we could follow along with her through the liturgy. This is our second liturgical service to attend and both times we found those around us very helpful in guiding us to the right places. They also had a VERY helpful guide in both the bulletin and one published just for visitors. They were certainly a very "visitor friendly" congregation.

This church sees itself as becoming a "hub" of churches to plant the historic Anglican faith in this area and to participate in a new reformation in this communion. To this I say a hearty "Amen" as it seems that the American Episcopal Church has strayed so far from the historic teachings of the Anglican Communion and the basic tents of orthodox Christianity. I am excited to begin to fellowship with this congregation of reformers! Some of them shared with me how they have left their former parishes due to the heretical doctrines being taught after having attended their entire lives. The rector made this statement: When Jesus builds His Church the gates of hell will not prevail against it...whether they be millions or just a few.

I did find that the liturgy moved too fast for me. What I was reading as we went through the BOCP was very meaningful, but because I was not familiar with it, much of it was lost on me. I think if I were to attend a church like this regularly I would want to read through the daily prayers BEFORE coming so that I could affirm them as an individual and then celebrate them with my fellow believers.

The sermon was packed with things that interested both Erik and I as much of it was an apologetic for liturgical worship. Here are just a few of the major points:

1. The Church is called to look back to what was given to her by God and not to "get creative with it." The pastor was making reference, certainly, to doctrine but also to the form of worship that was established at the beginning of Christianity. Christianity is an "offshoot" of Judaism which is a very ritualistic and liturgical religion. Jesus would have worshiped liturgically. Since early Christians were familiar with this form of worship it would seem that their early services were also liturgical.

2. He made the statement "those who believe you can't pray from a prayer book need to toss out their hymnals." (Sadly, I could inform him that many of us have done just that.) This was an interesting revelation for me. I regularly use my hymnal in my devotions...but I never really looked at it as a "prayer book" yet that is exactly how I use it. The words in my hymnal were written by someone else and yet have many times brought me to tears because they reflect my heart toward God. This gave me something to chew on as I consider the place of non-extemporaneous prayers.

3. He used Titus 1:4,5 to give a defense of apostolic succession. I will not articulate it as well as he did but it went along these lines: Paul ordained Titus, his "true child in the common faith," and commissioned him as a "bishop" of the island of Crete where Titus was to set the church in order and it was his responsibility, as a bishop, to appoint elders/pastors in the different cities. This shows that the early church had an ORDER of establishing churches. It was not done just because someone said, "Let's start a church and find ourselves a pastor and some deacons, etc." There is an unbroken chain of ordination throughout church history. He used the illustration that Al Gore may have believed himself to be a duly elected president in 2000 but he wasn't...because he wasn't part of an unbroken chain of men who had taken the oath of office regardless of what he believed. It is the same way with ordination. One can't simply decide to start ordaining people. He gave one of the best defenses of apostolic succession that I have ever heard.

4. He also addressed the "funny clothes" that priests wear. He describes them as a "uniform" that distinguishes the clergy much like a policeman wears a uniform to distinguish his availability to those around him. The uniform is interchangeable with any other clergyman and, therefore, keeps "personality cults" down to a minimum because you approach the clergy as an officer of the church not as "a man that you happen to like." This keeps people from identifying the church too readily with a certain man.

5. He also made an interesting observation with regard to the Church body: Rapid changes are usually a sign of a cancer not of healthy growth. Beware of any organization that constantly pushes "change."

All in all, he gave us a lot to chew on.

After the service, there was a fellowship brunch. Everyone was so very friendly to us. There were about 15 in attendance (this is a new church with no building of their own). The pastor took a full HOUR with us to answer questions and was very knowledgeable and personable.

Afterward, Erik and I enjoyed a leisurely lunch together and had some deep conversation about some of the things we had just heard.

I believe that we will be back to visit this new congregation. I am excited about what God is doing in this historic Church and I want to encourage this branch that is fighting for the "faith once delivered for all the saints."

Ash Wednesday at St. Cecilia's Cathedral

2/25/09

Today I attended my first Ash Wednesday service. I went to St. Cecilia's Catedral in Omaha. I went alone as most everyone else was busy but I think that was the best way for me to attend. It allowed me to focus on the service and my own reflection.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season of preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ on Easter. Growing up in a "free church" denomination we do not observe Lent. My entire life I have experienced the "high" of Palm Sunday followed immediately by the "high" of Easter Sunday...with nothing in between. We waved palm branches one Sunday and the next time we met we celebrated the resurrection. But we never really observed what happened in between, at least not in an organized intentional way.

Don't get me wrong, I grew up hearing sermons about the cross and the death of Christ was not overlooked at all in our preaching but it was done only at the direction of the pastor when he felt that it needed addressed.

I have always felt Easter sort of "sneaking up" on me and I never felt prepared for it as I do for Christmas. We start getting ready for the celebration of the birth of Christ the day after Thanksgiving...not because it's a religious thing but because it's a cultural thing. We can't escape preparing for Christmas...it's everywhere around us. But Easter always seems to catch me by surprise because I don't prepare for it and look forward to it and anticipate it by the things I do in my home and church.

Anyway, here's just a few of the things I observed today during and after the Ash Wednesday service...

1. Ash Wednesday is a day that I intentionally repent of my sins and mourn the hurt that they have caused. Sprinkling ashes on the head is an ancient tradition that symbolizes repentance and mourning. I am familiar with this concept in the Old Testament writings. I appreciated the time given in this Catholic service to sit in utter silence and confess my sins to God. I like the liturgical concept of confession of sins before entering into worship. I think this is healthy. Far too often we come into a church worship service with no thought of what may be causing a blockage between our spirit and the Presence of God. As the placed the ashes on the forehead one of the things he said to each participant was "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." I need that message, not just today, but everyday.

2. Ash Wednesday is a day that I intentionally embrace the concept of humility. While I didn't participate in the application of ashes because I was not sure that it was for non-catholics, as I watched the others I did sense how "humiliating" it would be to stand before this huge crowd and allow my face to be marred with an ugly black mark. I had never identified the attribute of "humility" with "humiliation" but they are obviously very closely related. I have grown up in a culture that teaches me to "put my best face forward." That was not the lesson I learned here in this ancient ritual. What I was encouraged to do here was to publicly and visibly bear the mark of the Cross for all the world to see my identification with the sufferings of Jesus...even if it made me look odd and out of place. Some of the words whispered by the priest as he placed the ashes were "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return." In other words, "Get over yourself."

3. Ash Wednesday is a day in which I begin a 40 day season of intentional self-denial. I am not trying to "earn points" with God. I am training my flesh to be in submission to my spirit. I am taking the money I would normally spend on a certain thing and giving it to those in need. I am intentionally taking extra time out of my day that I would normally focus on "feeding my fleshly needs" and putting that focus on communion with God. I believe that this practice of self-denial will develop my ability to say "no" to myself when things that I want are in conflict with the things that God wants.

4. Ash Wednesday is a day when I experience greater unity with other believers. Even though I didn't bear on my face the marks of the cross, as I went through the day I saw many others who did. When I saw them I felt a kinship with them...fellow believers who, on that day, had also taken the same vows to repent, to humble themselves before God and to fast. I found myself wanting to run up to each of them and talk and share our stories. Then I remembered that I had not taken the ashes...and I found myself wishing that I had. Perhaps next year???

While I am not ready to make participation in a service such as Ash Wednesday a requirement for Christianity, I do feel that my Easter season and my preparation for it were deeply enriched by attending this service today. Thank you to the congregation at St. Cecelia's Cathedral for allowing this protestant pentecostal girl to share in your services.

Quinquagesima - Sunday before Lent with the Lutherans

2/22/09

Today I have arranged things so that Erik and I are both free of responsibilities in the morning service at our church. It is the last Sunday before Lent...where shall we go this morning? We wanted to attend a new Anglican church plant in Omaha but got our map directions wrong and were not able to make it on time. So we settled on St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs. http://stpaulslutheran-cb.org/

St. Paul's is a Lutheran Church in the Missouri Synod. It doesn't have much to do with Missouri, other than being headquarted in St. Louis. It is smaller and more conservative than the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. We arrived just as they were getting started with the Christian Education hour.

Since Erik is 17, I gave him the option of attending a youth class but he chose to stick with me in the adult session. We met in a fellowship hall and it was very well attended. I noticed a variety of ages in attendance. We joined a table at the back and the people nodded their welcome since the class was beginning and they didn't want to interrupt the speaker.

Our teacher was the pastor, Rev. Nathan Sherrill. He was younger than I expected and led us in an opening hymn "The Son of God Goes Forth to War." This was a new one to me but the group sang it with gusto and it was easy to join in. Erik liked it.

The class was beginning a study on the book of Galatians and after opening comments from Pastor Sherrill it was announced that we would read the entire book together as a group with a volunteer leader for each chapter. I love the book of Galatians and after sitting through the other readings I decided to be quite bold and stood to read the sixth chapter. I was a little hesitant as all the other readers had been male and I was not completely sure, as a female, that I wouldn't be out of line but no one seemed to be bothered by a female guest participating in the reading. At least, if they were, they didn't mention it to me.

The pastor then opened up the floor for Q & A and I was very impressed with the biblical literacy of the class. The questions that were asked were thoughtful and I could tell that the group was accustomed to discussing meaningful topics. There was no cotton-candy, seeker-sensitive stuff here. These were mature believers looking to discuss and interact on principles of Scripture. I wasn't ready for the class to end when it did.

We went up to the beautiful sanctuary for the service. According to the bulletin, this was Quinquagesima - refering to the 50 days before Easter and being the first Sunday before the beginning of the Lenten Season on Ash Wednesday. This wasn't explained too well; I had to look it up. However, the theme of the service was outlined in the bulletin. I liked that. Sometimes church services seem to be a collection of organized chaos...I liked that the theme of what we were focusing on that day was easily available to me. The focus of the day was on the understanding that following Jesus in His death is what wins the battle against "the old evil foe." The hymns and the sermon all focused on "The Church Militant." Quoting from the bulletin: "Satan would love to orchestrate a theological lullaby in our church, but Christ's people can remain vilgilant." Honestly, I wasn't expecting to hear that in a Lutheran church at all. It's refreshing to be reminded that spiritual warfare predates C. Peter Wagner.

The other worshippers could see that we were rather "lost" in the liturgy and very graciously showed us which page to go to in the worship book. The lady sitting next to us was a German immigrant and was very enjoyable as a "pewmate." She spoke to us both before and after the service.

I noticed that they prayed specifically for members of the church who were in need...especially those who were sick or in the armed forces. I got the impression that this is done every Sunday. It's also good to be reminded that belief in the healing power of God predates the pentecostal movement.

We read quite a bit of Scripture and the sermon on the militancy of the church was well presented. I have heard us Pentecostals remark that the mainline churches are ignoring the scriptures but that was certainly not the case here. There was more scripture reading in this service than I am accustomed to. I liked reading together as a congregation. It made me feel like an active participant rather then just a passive listener.

The pastor took time after the service to speak with us personally. I like that. So many churches we are herded in and herded out and never speak to anyone resembling a pastor. This was not the case here. All in all it was a good morning and a great way to begin the Lenten Season.

The bulletin was full of activities to attend...some of which I was tempted to add to my already over crowded calendar. However, I let the idea of attending the pork and sauerkraut dinner go by the wayside...apparently there's still a lot of Germany in the Lutheran church.

What I am Learning About Lent

I do intend to write on some of the more practical aspects of observing Lent as I am discovering so many exciting things but, right now, I am learning so much about the philosophy behind it that I want to share with you.

My understanding of Lent had been that people "gave up __________" for Lent and, really, I considered it to be a very "works-based" form of penance that is unnecessary since Jesus has already paid for my sins and nothing I can DO will make me any more worthy of His forgiveness. To me, that is the beautiful freedom of the Gospel: salvation is by faith alone through grace alone dependent on His work and not mine.

However, the more I study on this the more I believe that I have been missing something precious! It seems that the practice of something similar to Lent has a prototype in the life of Jesus.

"Immediately, the Holy Spirit urged Jesus into the desert. There, for forty days, alone except for desert animals, he was subjected to Satan's temptations to sin. And, afterwards, the angels came and cared for him." Mark 1:12-13

We don't know a lot about the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness before He began His public ministry. We do know that it was a time of fasting and learning to discipline his flesh during temptation...and, while not specifically mentioned, I'm sure it included prayer. When the devil came to Him, the words of Scripture were quick on His tongue so it must have also been a time of meditation on the Word of God.

Here's what I can see from this Scripture:

1. This was intentional time away from the regular routine to focus on spiritual discipline.
2. It was instigated by the Holy Spirit.
3. It was for an extended and set time.
4. It included solitude.
5. It was a time of learning to say "NO" to Satan, to the flesh, and to pride.
6. The activities seemed to have a focus on fasting, meditating on Scripture and, by inference, prayer.
7. He was ministered to and comforted by angels in the end.

Was Jesus trying to EARN anything from God in these 40 days? No...there is no evidence of that. What WAS the purpose?

My study in looking up the Old Testament references that Jesus used in combatting temptation led me to Deuteronomy 8 where I found an interesting principle that relates to the purposes of intentional "wilderness time." As the Israelites were in the desert 40 years, so Jesus was in the desert 40 days. Listen to what God said about the purpose of that desert time:

"You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry...that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." Deuteronomy 8:2,3

The purposes here in these verses would be:

1. To cause us to remember how the Lord has led us
2. To bring about humility
3. To test the content and character of our heart
4. To test our commitment to keep His commandments when it is not easy to do so
5. To allow ourselves to be hungry so that we realize that there is more to life to desire than just the things of earth

This leads me to ask myself this question: WHAT IF I decided to intentionally take an extended and set amount of time, at the leading of the Holy Spirit, to pull away from the regular routine of life and practice intentional self-denial for the purpose of bringing the contents of my heart open before the Lord and allowing Him to take this time to show me purpose in suffering and sacrifice?

WHAT IF thousands of unified believers, all over the world, chose to do this at the same time every year at the direction of their spiritual leaders? WHAT IF we chose to do that in the weeks preceding the greatest celebration of the greatest victory over Sin, Satan, and Self? Would it be possible that the celebration of Resurrection would take on a whole new meaning as we partake of the sufferings and sacrifice of our Lord through the practice of crucifying our fleshy desires with fasting, humility, and giving?

I think I've changed my mind about Lenten observation being a "works-based penance." I think it could well be an avenue of knowing Jesus in the way Paul writes about in Philippians 3:

"I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness. I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it." (Philippians 3:9-11 The Message)

Why I Have Decided to Observe Lent...

There it is in black and white: I am observing Lent this year.

I was raised classic southern pentecostal. I wouldn't have chosen any other upbringing. I love my heritage and it's history. The stories my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather would share of the power of God always thrilled me and made me want to experience all I could of God's presence. The main things I was taught as a child were that "what God once did He is still doing." "The God of the book of Acts is the same God we serve." "When it comes to His presence never settle for anything less or for anything more." "We are to seek to be a New Testament church."

I was also raised with the belief that God had delivered us out of the apostate church of "mainline-ism" and that all of the trappings of the historical churches were not only absent from the New Testament church but were, at the least, a distraction to worship and, at worst, Satan's plan to return the church to an Old Testament concept of priests, rituals, and sacred days of rules and regulations.

My exposure to church history growing up was mostly limited to the revival movements of the past. We revered the names of John and Charles Wesley but scorned what the Methodists had become. We lauded the bravery of Martin Luther but would never have stepped into a Lutheran church. I remember listening, with fascination, to my father wax eloquent in the pulpit about the martyrdom of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley but never knew anything about their life outside of their final moments and certainly nothing of the Church of England. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were very familiar names but we always focused on the aspects of their lives as it related to awakening revival rather than what they believed about serving God in plain old ordinary day to day living.

I began this journey of opening my mind to participation in the historical churches about five years ago when I began a personal study of the history and development of the English Bible. (Extraordinary story - full of the most fascinating people and events! I'll have to do a few blogs on that sometime). As part of that study, I took a trip to England and spent two weeks with an evangelical Anglican rector. You have to understand my background to understand this next statement: I was shocked to find that he was...well...a Christian. End result: I fell "in love" with this 70-something year old Scottish man and stuck to him like glue all over the countryside of Great Britain. By the end of the trip, I am sure that he was quite ready for me and all my questions to return to the other side of the pond!

As he took me to places like St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and Canterbury he patiently explained to me all the significance of the different things we were observing. I remember, at the beginning of the trip, standing with him in York Minster and asking "Doesn't all this seem rather a waste? Think of all the starving peasants who gave to build this edifice...couldn't that money have gone to better things?"

Have you ever been yelled at by an elderly Anglican minister? It's not a lovely experience. He began to point out to me how the height of the ceiling naturally lifts the eyes heavenward. Did I not think that these people who lived in mud all their lives needed something to pull their eyes upward? He gestured to the beautiful stained glass that told the stories of Jesus' life and ministry and reminded me that my precious books would have meant little to these people who couldn't read but could come and learn of God's love and the existence of beauty in the world through the architecture of the Cathedrals. Did I not realize that every aspect of this building and its services had been painstakingly planned and developed to attempt to import some of the creative majesty of the Almighty to this terrestial existence? I was sternly rebuked.

He made his point. It was on this study adventure that I began to realize that I had much to learn about God and about worship. That there was wisdom, depth, and a reverence that I was not experiencing and that, just perhaps, there might be something I could learn from the historical church experience.

A few years ago I read "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail" by Robert Webber and realized that I am not alone in this learning process.

Now, before anyone gets too excited and writes me off as having "gone over" to the Ecumenical Dark Side and starts checking for my name at the World Council of Churches website, hear me on this: I am Pentecostal through and through. If it was reasonable, I would paint my house turquoise (only people in Springfield would get that one). I am a member of the Stanley Horton Fan Club. However, I am open to the very real possibility that God's people are much bigger than our movement and that, perhaps, resources like The Book of Common Prayer might be actually beneficial to me in my devotional life.

Anyway, I wrote all this to explain why this year I have decided to participate in the liturgical lenten season. It's a new experience for me and it may be the only time I ever do it. But, then again, maybe this will be a regular thing for me. I will be blogging on it through the next few months. I already have some great notes from the Ash Wednesday service last week at St. Cecilia's Cathedral in Omaha. I'm looking forward to sharing with you the things that I am learning on this journey.

And, I'm sure, my elderly Anglican rector friend would look down at me and say, "You have much to learn, Grasshopper."

Upcoming blogs

Hopefully, I will get to my blog on Sunday or Monday at the latest...it's been SO busy! I've been taking some notes on my journey as an evangelical in keeping up with the liturgical calendar. Got some great stuff to share with you! Keep checking back!

Blessings!
Ruthie