The Attraction of the Episcopal Church, 4

Another young Evangelical, Lindsey Herts, explains why she's attending the Episcopal church. She describes attending church in an unfamiliar city

As we were waiting for the service to begin, the silence of the place washed over me. It gave me permission to lay down my arms and discard any kind of mask I wanted to put on. In a way, it was like the silence stripped me of my false identity, left me naked, and allowed me just to simply be. The silence in each Episcopal service I've attended has affected me in the the same way. ...

Then it came time for Eucharist. We were invited to kneel around the table together while the rector came around and fed us each the bread and wine. Whenever I was kneeling and chewing the piece of bread, I started to tear up because something about this moment just felt right. I thought to myself, "I'm at the same table as the middle aged black man in the nice suit and the older white couple and the homeless guys. We're all kneeling. We're all being fed. We're all eating the same bread and literally drinking from the same cup."

I think that's why I can't manage to pull myself away from the Episcopal church right now. Everything is centered around this one moment where people of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, political beliefs, and backgrounds are welcome to come to the table and receive the elements. ....

I've started crossing myself, walking the labyrinth at my church, and reading from the book of common prayer when I'm not sure what to pray. The ancient practices and prayers are beginning to slowly but surely draw me back to the heart of the God I fell in love with 7.5 years ago, except in a different manner than I ever would have expected. I'm finding that God is much more inclusive and full of grace than I initially thought.

The Attraction of the Episcopal Church, 3

Ben Irwin shares 11 things he loves about the Episcopal Church, including

1. The way the liturgy soaks into your being.

The first few times I walked through those big red doors, I didn’t know the code. I didn’t know when to sit or stand. I didn’t know how to use the prayer book. I didn’t know how to cross myself.

While others have sought to make Christianity as accessible as possible, the liturgy of the Episcopal Church feels other, like a strange artifact calling us into a different and slightly foreign reality. Learning the liturgy was like learning a new language.

These days, I’m having to rely less on the prayer book. After months (and now years) of repetition, the words and movements come more naturally from within.....

....

When I struggle to believe, the rhythms and patterns and prayers of the liturgy are like an anchor. It’s as if the rest of the community—those around me and those who came before me—are saying, “It’s OK. We’ll carry you through this part.”
....
4. The way it embraces orthodoxy without rigidity.
....

Anglicanism has long been known as the via media, the “middle way” between two traditions. The Episcopal Church has also helped me navigate the middle way between unbelief and dogmatism. Ours is a faith handed down from the apostles, but not one so fragile that it cannot cope with science, with new findings about the origins of the universe, ourselves, or whatever else we might discover.
...
5. How it makes room for those who’ve been burned out, worn out, or otherwise cast out. ...

A lot of us have burned out on our faith at some point—or been cast out. Maybe it’s because we grew tired of always having to pretend we have it all together. Or maybe someone’s gender or some other part of their identity excluded them from service. Maybe we were told we had to choose between science and faith. Or maybe we were just beaten down by the relentless drum of condemnation.

The Episcopal Church is a refuge, a respite, a place where we can come as we are and learn to receive grace again. ...

6. The way you can simply be, if that’s all you can do.

....

We belong so that we might find a common faith together, not the other way around.

The Attraction of the Episcopal Church, 2

Continuing our series by quoting from young Evangelicals who have found their way through the big red doors, Rachel Held Evans:

At first, the liturgy of the Episcopal Church captured me with its novelty. The chants and collects, calls and responses were a refreshing departure from the contemporary evangelical worship I’d come to associate with all my evangelical baggage. I liked confessing and receiving communion each week. I liked reciting the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed together in community. I liked the smells and bells. Each Sunday I’d stuff the sandy-colored bulletin in my purse so I could go home and study the rhythm of this worship, imbibing the poetry of those holy words.

We didn’t know many people then. I kept my eyes on the floor as I walked away from the Table on Sundays, afraid of exchanging too many warm smiles, afraid of becoming too familiar to these kind, religious people who, like all kind, religious people will inevitably disappoint and be disappointed. ....

But we’ve been showing up for nearly six months now, and so it is a different sort of beauty I encounter on Sunday mornings these days—the beauty of familiarity, of sweet routine.

I know the order of service now. I know it well enough to have favorite parts, to skim ahead when I’m hungry or restless, to get the songs stuck in my head. And we know the people too.... 

It is a season of new songs.

It is a season of receiving, of being loved just for showing up.

I am holding all these gifts gingerly, like fragile blue eggs I’m afraid to break. I am holding them the way I hold that white wafer in my cupped, open hands—grateful, relieved, and still just a little bit frightened of what will happen when I take it and eat.

The attraction of the Episcopal Church, 1

A number of individuals from more Evangelical traditions have found themselves worshiping in Episocpal churches lately.  I'm going to quote them over the next couple of days.  Do you see yourself?

Jonathan Martin, a Pentacostal preacher, on walking through the big red doors.

I loved that it never felt like the church was trying to sell me anything. I loved that really, nobody is fussed over at all—there is just is not that kind of VIP treatment for anybody. The vibe is, “this is the kind of worship we do here, and you are welcome to come and do this with us…or not.” The liturgy there does not try to coerce everyone into the same emotional experience, but in its corporate unity strangely creates space for us all to have a very personal experience of God. I have commented to friends that I have never actually prayed this much in church before.

With my own world feeling disordered and untethered, I am quite happy to be told when to kneel and when to sit and when to stand. I love that there is almost no space in the worship experience to spectate, because almost every moment invites (but not demands) participation. I have been in no position to tell my heart what to do. But because the Church told my body what to do in worship, my heart has been able to follow—sometimes. And that is enough for now.

He goes on,

The thing I love about Catholic, Anglican and Pentecostal tradition (when it is rightly understood), is that they are based on shared practices rather than shared beliefs. At St. Peter’s, we recite the Nicene creed every week. But the practice of the liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer in general, and the shared experience of the Eucharist in particular, is what holds us together. Beyond that, there is plenty of room for difference. The emphasis is not on sharing dogma so much as it is sharing the cup.

I believe this is the great hope for the unity of the Church: that though we may hold almost nothing else in common we, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, know that somehow Christ is revealed to us around the table, and have burning hearts afterward to prove it. The experience of God in and through this meal gives us the resources to transcend the temporal boundaries that might otherwise divide us.

Big blog announcement

Some of our readers have been around for a long time. I think most of us first met at Fr Jake's, at which time I explained that Your Token Atheist was hanging here in part to learn what I could tell my wife the RC about a sensible catholicism.

I am pleased, nay, absolutely delighted to inform you that my most beloved BP will be received into The Episcopal Church at the Easter Vigil by Bishop James Mathes in the Cathedral of St Paul in San Diego. It isn't an easy journey and I am awed by her strength and her serenity as she takes this step. Both of us feel very welcome at St Paul's (which is saying quite a lot, coming from me!)

Many of you have been invaluable in assisting me as well as BP in this journey, and I treasure you as dear, dear friends.

But I think the ultimate blog blame resides with that mysterious dark-eyed Terry Martin. Thank you, Terry, for so much.