Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa

The Sunday after Christmas Day is traditionally a morning of sparse attendance in churches, but when we entered the sanctuary at 9:10 a.m. for the 9:15 a.m. service and no one was there...Well, we thought something might be amiss. Another person entered the building and said to us, "Did you see the 9:15 time on the internet as well?" Fortunately, someone else came and told us that the 9:15 and 11:15 had been combined into a 10 a.m. service for that morning, but we were welcome to join others for coffee. We instead took the time to run home to change the laundry.

Back at ten, there were pews open to choose from, but the sanctuary was inhabited, mostly with older folks, but also a couple of families with kids. The priest began the service with greetings and informed us that it would be a special service of Lessons and Carols. "Usually," he said, "the Carols and Lessons don't include Communion, but we're patching it on. Or rather, I should say, we're patching Carols and Lessons on to Communion."

I should say something about the church architecture, which is gorgeous. A flyer included in a bag of welcoming materials (with mini Snickers - score!) gives information about the art in the church and the church building itself. The congregation began in 1861, but building was begun on the present location in 1872. Though Ripley's Believe It Or Not immortalized the Church of One Tree in Santa Rosa, Incarnation's original structure was built with two redwood trees. In 1885 the church was quartered, drawn apart and enlarged, and then survived the 1906 earthquake. The church building is the oldest church structure in continuous use in Santa Rosa. One of those uses is ministry and meals to the homeless, including breakfast every Sunday morning before the first worship service.

It goes without saying (but apparently not, because here I am saying it), that it was appropriate and cool that we were celebrating the Incarnation at the church so named.

I was familiar with the choice of Scriptures, since they were pretty much the ones used at the Christmas Eve services I attended at First Presbyterian growing up. Something I've noticed about the reading from Genesis is that people always seem to chuckle appreciatively when Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the Serpent for the Fall. Everyone relates to the rebellion that made the Incarnation necessary.

I was struck by how many of the Carols we sang were of the variety that set Jesus' birth in the setting of a snowy European village (such as "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "The Snow Lay on the Ground") but another Carol was quite obviously set in Canada. "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime" includes such lyrics as "Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found, a ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round" and "The Chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt". Fortunately, the theology of these Carols is far better than the seasonal and geographic details.

All the Carols were sung from the Hymnal accompanied by the organ. (Except "O Come All Ye Faithful." It was played on the organ during communion and people began to hum and then spontaneously sing.) I enjoyed most all the Carols, but a note for what it's worth, "Go Tell It on the Mountain" is not at its best accompanied only by organ sung primarily by Caucasians.

This was the second Sunday in a row without a sermon, which was okay by Mindy. I'll share her dark secret -- which readers of this blog should probably be aware of -- she doesn't like sermons. Her father preaches, and her husband preaches, and she claims to enjoy and profit from both of our sermons (it seems best for family comity to believe this and not dig too deeply into the matter). But she often gets restless during the sermons of others, even other pastors she loves. But Scripture reading and singing bring her unending delight.

I'm always torn when churches have "the Passing of the Peace". Only saying "Peace be with you" to those around you seems rather impersonal at times. But as church pilgrims, knowing we won't return the next week, impersonal sometimes suits us best.
  
Service Length:                       1 hour 5 minutes
Sermon Length:                      No sermon
Visitor Treatment:                   During announcements near the end of the service, the rector came into the body of the sanctuary, asked first-time visitors to raise hands and gave each a bag with candy and information about the church
Our Rough Count:                  60
Probable Ushers' Count:         70
Snacks:                                    Coffee, tea, cookies, pie, yogurt pretzels, crackers with hummus, whole loaves of bread (seemingly available to take home)
Songs:
"Angels from the Realms of Glory"
"In the Bleak Midwinter"
"Comfort, Comfort Ye My People"
"Lo, How a Rose e'er Blooming"
"Twas in the Moon of Wintertime"
"The Snow Lay on the Ground"
"Of the Father's Love Begotten"
"Go Tell It on the Mountain"

-- Dean

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Healdsburg Seventh Day Adventist Church

Mindy and I have gone to church the vast majority of Sundays in our lives; so much so that it throws off our mental calendars for the week when we don't go. Prior to last weekend, we had a different challenge to the aforementioned mental calendars: remembering to go to church on Saturday morning.

The Seventh Day Adventist denomination has been meeting on Saturdays for a year plus a century and a half. It's one of their founding beliefs, that Christians should meet on the Sabbath as dictated by one of the Ten Commandments and Jesus' practice on earth. Traditionally, most other Christians meet for worship on Sunday in honor of the Resurrection.

There's something to be said for placing a Scriptural basis over a traditional basis for a practice. Upon entering the church, we were greeted by several people with a handshake and "Happy Sabbath."
We knew before we came (the church's website calendar told us) that this would not be their standard service, but instead was the Christmas program. The sanctuary was quite full and the service opened with the Healdsburg Brass. (When we attended Healdsburg Community Church the Healdsburg Brass often opened Easter services.)

We sang a number of Christmas Carols from the hymnal. I was very happy that among the carols was "Now is Born the Divine Christ Child," a song that I usually hear sung in French. (Really, how many songs refer to an oboe, let alone the musette?)

 The program had "Praise Songs / Holy Land Band" but instead there was piano or guitar accompaniment to carols from the Adventist Hymnal. My guess would be that the Holy Land Band usually leads choruses, but things change at Christmas. Many churches we've attended no longer keep their hymnals out, if they even have them. I shared a hymnal with a couple of little girls whose mother had a seat behind us. We were surrounded by a number of small children which made Mindy and me happy, and Mindy noticed a ziploc bag of activities one family had picked up at the back of the church.

There was a dedication of a baby that apparently came all the way from Australia for the event (accompanied by his parents). His mother had grown up in the church and a large contingent of the family came forward, a number of them also having come from Australia.

A number of children came forward for the "Children's Story" which advocated the virtues of being nice over being naughty. After the main offering, children were sent off to collect dollar bills for the local Adventist schools.

There was no sermon for the morning (which made me a little sad because I was looking forward to hearing my friend and the church's pastor, Dan Martella), the message coming through the Christmas Program performed by the Cloverdale Adventist School, "A Christmas to Believe In." The kids did a great job, pulling off the humor and the music, including several solos. The Church Choir and the Men's Chorus provided some of the music in the program as well. From something the woman sitting next to Mindy mentioned, we got the impression that this group performs a Christmas program at the church each year.

After the program, there were a couple of other special musical numbers, a string quartet and a solo. Much happy socializing took place at the service's conclusion. (Apparently, again according to the church website, on the first Sunday of the month there is a 9 am breakfast, followed by 9:45 Bible Study, worship at 11:00 am and then lunch. So fellowship opportunities would seem plentiful.)

It was a good time of worship and worth the challenge to our daily equilibrium.

Statistics:
Service Length: 1 hour 25 minutes
Christmas program time: 35 minutes
Visitor Treatment: Greeted at the door; no "friendship pad" or other way to register attendance (that we noticed)
Our Rough Count: 200
Probable Ushers' Count: 225
Snacks: none
Songs: What Child is This?
            Now is Born the Divine Christ Child
            Silent Night (five verses)
           --Dean

Saturday, November 29, 2014

A Pilgrim Can’t Expect the Expected

“We’ve always done it this way before!” is one of the most easily mocked phrases in the modern Christian church. When someone’s come up with a new way to worship more vibrantly, reach people, or even just save money, and people object just because it’s not traditional, you almost have to laugh.

But not at this time of year.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, and so much of the emotion of Christmas is tied to tradition. This is as true in the church as it is in most households. In both places, it seems important that this particular song is sung and this particular ornament is hung. Frankly, for most of the last three decades, I’ve had enough influence in the churches I’ve been a part of to make sure that many of my favorite traditions are upheld.

I’ve written Christmas programs with songs I want to hear. I’ve been able to pick favorite Scripture for advent readings. And even when I haven’t been able to choose, when I’ve been in a church for years, I could take comfort in expecting things to go as they had before.

But not now.

For this next month, Mindy and I are choosing churches rather randomly. We’ve chosen (been called?) to be church pilgrims for the next couple of years. We don’t know if “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” will be sung tomorrow (a hymn that should always be sung early in the advent season). We don’t know if the churches we’ll go to will have an advent wreath with candles lit by small children very excited about fire. We don’t know if there will be a Christmas tree (that wonderful theft from paganism). We don’t know if the churches we’ll go to even celebrate Advent in four Sundays or save all their Yuletide cheer for one end of the year blow-out event.

Early in our marriage, we moved to a new area and began to worship at a wonderful church that did celebrate Advent. They sang all the right songs. They had caroling activities, and I believe the Sunday School class had a Christmas party. But the pastor came up with absolutely the worst name for an Advent sermon series I’ve ever heard. Taken from Psalm 2:12, the series was entitled, “Kiss the Son Lest.” It’s a small comfort as we encounter different Advent traditions in the weeks to come, traditions perhaps different from our history and preferences: we will not have to deal with a sermon series with a title that awkward for four weeks in a row.


--Dean




Monday, September 29, 2014

What's Happening in 2015

Mindy and I (Dean writes) will be starting an adventure in the year 2015. We will be visiting churches throughout California on a thematic basis (megachurches/home churches, urban churches/rural churches) and we would like you to join us. Just for fun, we'll also be writing about our visits to churches in films, churches in history (real and imagined) and will be writing about church trends, quirks and peeves.

All this is in preparation for an even bigger adventure in 2016 when we plan to visit a church in every state. Bookmark or follow this site now and join our church pilgrimage.