moving

The discussing will continue at theprophetjoel.com

Look for the category "protestant-catholic." I choose to move this blog to my other one so that I can write more generally rather than only ecumenical matters here. I hope to see you over there.

I Accept Jesus as My Personal Friend

In the DOC church all that is asked of an individual for membership is a rather simple affirmation of faith (we say this is not a creed, because its an affirmation of what we believe. credo in latin means I believe...hmmm...)

At my home church, and at others I have visited, the affirmation is "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God and do you accept him as Lord and Savior?" Upon an affirmative response, the individual is accepted into the community and if they have not been baptized they are now eligible.

Easter Sunday I was at a church where I heard a variation on this affirmation: "Do you believe that Jesus is the son of the living God and do you take him to be your personal friend, guide, companion and savior? And do you accept his Gospel of unconditional love?"

Quite different. "Personal friend, guide and companion" can in no way equate to Lord. It is not even in the same ballpark. Lord is someone who has power over us; someone whom we submit to; someone so much greater than ourselves; God.

At this particular church this affirmation was given to children preparing for baptism, so I thought it was intentionally watered down for their benefit. However the same affirmation was asked of the adults being baptized.

How is Jesus Lord in the life of those who make this affirmation? Is the understanding of Jesus' lordship lost? Is he no loner Lord?

A Welcoming Eucharist

We were unable to attend our regular church for Good Friday because my wife had to work during their services. I found another local church with an evening Good Friday mass which we went to. It was absolutely beautiful. We decided to continue the Easter Triduum at this new church. So we went to the Vigil and Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday. The sanctuary was already packed so we heading to the "overflow mass" in the social hall. This was monsignor's first mass since he had had surgery. He preached on the Gospel text, John 20, when Mary and the disciples discover the empty tomb.

He said that Peter is a symbol of authority in this Gospel and The Beloved Disciple is a symbol of love. He recognizes that The Beloved Disciple gets to the tomb before Peter. The main idea of his homily was "love always trumps authority."

Later, during the Eucharistic prayers, the priest broke from the liturgy and said a word about the church's Eucharistic practice. I cannot give a perfect quote here, but I will try to remember. He said "I invite everyone here to come forward. If Eucharist is not part of your tradition I encourage you to come forward for a blessing so that we can welcome, accept and bless you." And then he quoted Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female." We are all one in Christ.

There is more he said, and he said it quite beautifully. Eucharist is part of my tradition (even as a Protestant), and I understood it has an invitation. It was the first time at a Catholic church that I felt welcome and invited to commune. I heard a radical message of Christ's love and welcoming.

Update: DOC Easter Vigil

While working on something else I found a liturgy for Easter Vigil in Chalice Worship (A worship manual for the Christian Church Disciples of Christ).

It follows very closely with what I found at the Catholic liturgy this past weekend. There is the liturgy of light, word, baptism, and Eucharist.

I will be examining it, and pray for me - perhaps even celebrating it in the next Easter season when I am serving a church.

How exciting.

Stations of the Cross at a Protestant Church

Tuesday of Holy Week the youth group at my internship church presented a modified version of the stations of the cross for the pastoral staff and their parents.

There were many positive reviews. It was rather meaningful for both the presenters (youth) and participants.

I am encouraged to see a Protestant church open to accepting practices that are so often considered to be for "Catholics only."

My First Easter Vigil

This past Eastern Triduum I had the opportunity to attend my first Easter Vigil. It was remarkably beautiful.

The evening began with the service of light, unfortunately I wasn't able to find a candle. The Christ candle processed down the center aisle and those closest to it lit their candles from it and passed it along to the fellow worshipers. By the time the Christ candle made it to the front of the worship space the entire sanctuary was full of light. It was a sign of Christ in and spread throughout the world.

Next came the liturgy of the word. It began with creation, then told the exodus story, the prophets and finally the story of Jesus' resurrection. It was a retelling and even a reliving of all salvation history. In particular I remember the Exodus reading. Someone from the church sung it and the congregation responded. It was like being part of a divine opera.

Fifteen people were baptized that night. There was one infant with her mother, two children and eleven others. As each person received the waters of baptism the entire congregation burst into song singing "Blessed be God!" I could feel the Body of Christ get larger with the reception of each new member. Following the baptisms were confirmations on those newly baptized and those not yet confirmed.

The evening concluded with a celebration of the Eucharist. With the retelling of our salvation history and the reception of new Christians, the community gathered for the climax of the evening in Eucharist.

It was a beautiful. The choir led worship wonderfully, but they did not sing to us; it was a community event. The telling of our history was done so well and vividly.

I wonder why Protestant Christians so readily adopted the Christmas Vigil (Christmas Eve service) but not the Easter Vigil. I feel like I have been missing something significant all these years.

The Rosary at A Protestant Church Camp

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending FebCamp, a regional high-school youth retreat co-sponsored by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. I was asked to develop the worship, and I enjoyed the weekend very much.

On Saturday and Sunday afternoon campers attended an interest group of their choice. The various interest groups were developed and lead by counselors or campers (with a counselor's help). I proposed an interest group: Rosary Prayer. I presented it as a medieval Christian spiritual practice of meditative prayer. I was a bit unsure about how it would be received, but I got 6 campers to sign up for the group, and another interested counselor also attended.

After I announced my interest group, a fellow counselor approached me and showed me his Rosary. It was comforting to know that I was not the only one in my tradition who is drawn to this spiritual practice. If you are not familiar with the D.O.C./U.C.C., they are Protestant denominations closely resembling a mix between Baptists and Presbyterians. My fellow Rosary-praying-Disciple graciously offered his Rosary to aid the interest group.

We began with a simple show-and-tell and I passed around the two Rosaries. As the Rosaries made their way around the circle I gave a brief history of the prayer and spoke about its use today.

Then I showed them the structure of the rosary: the decades, the crucifix, etc.

I wanted to slowly introduce them to the Hail Mary, the heart of the Rosary. Keep in mind that our Christian tradition has practically zero Mariology.

We read Luke 1:28 "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." (NIV) showing them that the prayer comes from scripture. We talked about intercessory prayer, and how it's okay for us to pray for one another. We believe that people are in heaven, including Mary, and they pray all day to God. So its not that we pray to Mary, but rather we ask Mary to pray for us. They accepted this premise quite well.

I then taught them the prayers themselves. We began with the sign of the cross. I said it is a way to mark sacred time which is set apart for speaking with God: "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." About half of the campers were comfortable with making the sign of the cross.

I skipped the Apostles Creed because I thought Mariology would be difficult enough for Disciples to grasp, I didn't need to tackle creeds today too (we are "anti-creedal"). I prayed three Hail Marys while the campers listened. I offered them a cheat sheet for the prayers, but no one seemed quite comfortable yet to pray the Hail Mary themselves.

I also taught them the Glory Be. In a Sunday liturgy Disciples often sing this following the tithes and offerings. We sung it together and many campers instantly made the connection. All were comfortable with this prayer.

And of course we prayed the Our Father together, which I explained is another name for The Lord's Prayer (a more familiar title in our tradition).

I then explained how you are supposed to mediate on a different set of mysteries for each day. It was a Sunday which is the Glorious Mysteries. These included The Assumption and the Coronation, which again may be too much for an induction to the Rosary for Protestants.

We looked at the first Glorious Mystery: The Resurrection. I told the campers to focus and mediate on this as we pray together. I then prayed a decade for them, announcing each scripture following each Hail Mary. They prayed with me the Glory Be and Our Father. I prayed the concluding prayers, and made the sign of the cross to finish.

I asked for their responses. They said "it was cool."; "it helped me to focus on the resurrection."; "I could almost see it."; "it was relaxing."

There was a small discussion which followed. The counselor asked if many other Disciples pray the Rosary, and I said it was uncommon. A camper asked "why is Jesus' body on the cross?" And we talked about how you can't have a resurrection without a cross, and how it is a visual aid to prayer. We also talked about the different focus of each tradition (see post on The Cross and the Crucifix). Another camper shared that she had a Rosary at home and now "know[s] what it is for."

I was surprised at how well it was received. A survey was taken at the close of camp and this interest group got rated a 3,4,4,4, and a 5 (with two not responding). That is an average of 4 (out of 5)!

Please feel free to share your experiences with the Rosary in a Protestant context, using the comment link below.