Wonderful and Wandering Worship

The weekly Eucharist service here on campus last night was wonderful! For those of you familiar with the new cranberry hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, we used Setting # 7. This worship setting, which can be sung entirely in Spanish, contains liturgical music with an Hispanic/Latino flair. While the melodies weren’t familiar to most of us, and the rhythms can admittedly be challenging for those of us who are stodgy German or Scandinavian Lutherans, the music was truly delightful to sing and a wonderful break from the routine. We also had the advantage of a small group of musicians, who are all students here on campus, who led the music. This group calls themselves Unexpected Harmony; they certainly did add an unexpected joy to our worship service.

Now on to the “wandering” part of this post: as seniors, we are not assigned to specific congregations in the area, as we were during our first two years of study. Ray and I have committed to regularly attending worship here on campus – both daily chapel services and the weekly Eucharist services – as part of our spiritual life and as a way of participating fully in the seminary community.

We are also intentionally using this year to worship on Sunday morning in different congregations around the area. Since we returned to campus last fall, we have had some opportunities to supply preach and to return to our home congregation, but most weeks we worship as visitors in a new congregation. This has given us the opportunity to experience worship in a wide variety of styles and worship spaces. These opportunities to visit have been very educational to us, as we get to experience firsthand how visitors are welcomed (even given gift bags or welcome kits) or virtually ignored; how clear the bulletins and worship instructions (both printed and verbal) are; what follow-up visitors receive (notes from the pastor or lay leaders); and whether or not we are remembered on a return visit a few weeks or even months later.

I know it sounds a bit like being a “secret shopper” or as though we are intentionally testing congregations or looking for weaknesses, but we really aren’t. You might be amazed at what kinds of things we have learned about how to welcome visitors well - and we know these experiences will certainly guide us in our future ministry.