This is part two of What Kind of Church is this. I think there will be a part three named What We Believe. As I said earlier, most people new to a church want to know what we do and what we believe. It would seem the two things should go together and I wouldn't need a separate blog post, but alas, this is not the case here. I have been going to church since I can remember, thanks to my parents who were faithful in making me come with them. We have always attended an Anglican church, but most of them were Episcopal. There is way too much to discuss to get into the differences of the two, and it really isn't important here, so we will just skip that part. All Episcopal/Anglican churches have a few things in common. When most everyone is seated, excluding late-comers, the priests come in from the back following a procession of someone carrying the cross, followed by a couple candles and some other people in robes. I love the procession of the cross. When I was a kid I used to make my grandfather carry the cross around the house as I followed him singing hymns. We didn't really have a cross, so he carried my horse head on a stick. A toy we played with. I know there must be a name for it, but you can picture it. At our church we have many different people that carry the cross, and they all have their own style. One of our carriers has earned the name "cross-ninja" by the band. This guy carries the cross with his hands upside down, as if he is ready to flip the cross around and take someone out. Anyway, we do "the parade." Then we sing. We sing for quite a while, maybe 10-15 minutes sometimes. All Anglican churches have music, but the style varies. Ours is a more modern setting, using keyboard, drums, bass, guitars, etc. Our church likes to sing; most of them do anyway. It always makes me smile to see a new person looking around after the second song. I can hear them thinking "how long does this last?" We then read from the Bible. Usually 3 readings. One from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one from the "Gospel" books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). After that you will hear a message for about 20 minutes. Pretty standard church stuff up to this point. During the service we also pray. We read ancient prayers, we read not-so ancient prayers, we pray our own prayers. We sit, we stand, we kneel, and do it all over again. It's like a form of Anglican Aerobics. We share a greeting with everyone in the church. Most people think the service is over at this point because it sure looks like it is. People get up and wander around saying hello to their friends. It is like a seventh inning stretch. We are almost done...more than half-way for sure. We then take your money...oh sorry...we ask for tithes and offerings. I really am not making fun of this part. Jesus talks more about money than anything else in the Bible. People have a problem with money and things coming before God. The Bible tries to teach us if we can give these things up freely, we can follow God freely. That includes not worrying about where the money goes after you give it. God deals with those who abuse it. I like how our bulletin tells visitors they are not expected to give, but our ushers will be sure to pass that plate in front of them with an expectant look. The last part of the service is communion. It is where we eat the styrofoam wafers and drink wine or grape juice. We now even offer gluten-free wafers. I don't even know what that means but it makes some people happy, so good for us. In the Bible, Jesus tells us about the last supper and says "do this in remembrance of Me"! I am not sure how any church can ignore this part of the Bible, especially when the letters are in red. So we do that in the service. This is the one part I get, and yet, it is the one part many churches leave out of a service. So there you have it. We parade, sing, read, pray, talk, do the stuff Jesus tells us to do, and then go outside to have a smaller "people-version" of church. That is where we parade (outside), sing (the song stuck in our heads), read (the bulletin), talk (to each other), give money (to our kids for lunch), eat (donuts and drink coffee), then go (home). New Covenant Church. Its what we do.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What We Do
This is part two of What Kind of Church is this. I think there will be a part three named What We Believe. As I said earlier, most people new to a church want to know what we do and what we believe. It would seem the two things should go together and I wouldn't need a separate blog post, but alas, this is not the case here. I have been going to church since I can remember, thanks to my parents who were faithful in making me come with them. We have always attended an Anglican church, but most of them were Episcopal. There is way too much to discuss to get into the differences of the two, and it really isn't important here, so we will just skip that part. All Episcopal/Anglican churches have a few things in common. When most everyone is seated, excluding late-comers, the priests come in from the back following a procession of someone carrying the cross, followed by a couple candles and some other people in robes. I love the procession of the cross. When I was a kid I used to make my grandfather carry the cross around the house as I followed him singing hymns. We didn't really have a cross, so he carried my horse head on a stick. A toy we played with. I know there must be a name for it, but you can picture it. At our church we have many different people that carry the cross, and they all have their own style. One of our carriers has earned the name "cross-ninja" by the band. This guy carries the cross with his hands upside down, as if he is ready to flip the cross around and take someone out. Anyway, we do "the parade." Then we sing. We sing for quite a while, maybe 10-15 minutes sometimes. All Anglican churches have music, but the style varies. Ours is a more modern setting, using keyboard, drums, bass, guitars, etc. Our church likes to sing; most of them do anyway. It always makes me smile to see a new person looking around after the second song. I can hear them thinking "how long does this last?" We then read from the Bible. Usually 3 readings. One from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one from the "Gospel" books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). After that you will hear a message for about 20 minutes. Pretty standard church stuff up to this point. During the service we also pray. We read ancient prayers, we read not-so ancient prayers, we pray our own prayers. We sit, we stand, we kneel, and do it all over again. It's like a form of Anglican Aerobics. We share a greeting with everyone in the church. Most people think the service is over at this point because it sure looks like it is. People get up and wander around saying hello to their friends. It is like a seventh inning stretch. We are almost done...more than half-way for sure. We then take your money...oh sorry...we ask for tithes and offerings. I really am not making fun of this part. Jesus talks more about money than anything else in the Bible. People have a problem with money and things coming before God. The Bible tries to teach us if we can give these things up freely, we can follow God freely. That includes not worrying about where the money goes after you give it. God deals with those who abuse it. I like how our bulletin tells visitors they are not expected to give, but our ushers will be sure to pass that plate in front of them with an expectant look. The last part of the service is communion. It is where we eat the styrofoam wafers and drink wine or grape juice. We now even offer gluten-free wafers. I don't even know what that means but it makes some people happy, so good for us. In the Bible, Jesus tells us about the last supper and says "do this in remembrance of Me"! I am not sure how any church can ignore this part of the Bible, especially when the letters are in red. So we do that in the service. This is the one part I get, and yet, it is the one part many churches leave out of a service. So there you have it. We parade, sing, read, pray, talk, do the stuff Jesus tells us to do, and then go outside to have a smaller "people-version" of church. That is where we parade (outside), sing (the song stuck in our heads), read (the bulletin), talk (to each other), give money (to our kids for lunch), eat (donuts and drink coffee), then go (home). New Covenant Church. Its what we do.
Monday, April 18, 2011
What Kind of Church Is This?
What kind of church is this? This is the most common question as people enter our doors. Our sign out front says New Covenant Church. People understand we are a church, that part was clear. But what kind of stuff happens in our church? That's what they really want to know. I can tell because as soon as the word "Anglican" comes out, the look on their face sort of glosses over in thought. In their heads they are checking their list of resources from old movies, TV shows, 20/20 reports of cults, etc. Have they ever heard of an Anglican Church? Mostly no. We are non non-denominational (that sure sounds redundant but it is true). We belong to the Church of England, does that clear it up? We are not any kind of "first" church; First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First United Methodist. But maybe we should be. I have never seen a First Anglican Church of Winter Springs so we probably could make that claim. Besides, how much easier is it to come up with a name for your church than to use the town and then say you are the first to put a church there. Sorry for late-comers. Second Baptist Church of Oviedo...I don't think so. Second United Methodist Church of Orlando is really not how things are done around here. One per town please. Find another town, or denomination. Or like the Catholics, instead of numbering our churches we could just use a holy name as the church name and say it is the church of The Most Holy Grail, or the church of Saint Denis. Probably never heard of that guy, have you? He was the first Bishop of Paris, and was beheaded. He is the patron saint of....you can't make this stuff up....headaches. Anyway, we are not a cool trendy church like Northpointe (the "e" makes it trendy), or Journey, Elevation, Carpenter's Shed, etc. Just New Covenant, as in the promise God made to his people. And we are Anglican. Not the Angel-ican church as our fire alarm people say when they call me. I have thought of a new angle on our Anglican name (now that was punny). Anglers are fishers, therefore we could be the Angler's Church....fishers of men! So you see, we could be trendy if we wanted, or first, or anything else. So what's in a name, you ask? The stuff we do, and the stuff we believe. Neither of which I have explained in this post. And that, my friends, is how it works. Better to discover what kind of church it is by sitting in a service. Come check us out this Sunday! And don't worry, stay tuned for part two on the stuff we believe and the stuff we do. Feel free to comment below, repost if you like, or just tell me what you think when you see me on Sunday!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
LOST and Holy Week
Ah, the blessings of planning an event. Not just any event. We are talking Holy Week. It's a series of events. This year it starts with an Easter Egg Hunt. I know. I am not fully sure why a church has an Easter Egg hunt but we sold Christmas trees one year so why not step into all that people relate Christian holidays to in the name of "reaching the lost". What "lost" you may ask? Good question. Without a trusty GPS I frequently am lost. Our senior Pastor last year got lost leaving our community Sunrise service. Well...sort of. He couldn't find his way out of the adjacent high-school parking lot. I am not really certain that counts as lost, but it made for a good story. Anyway, 11 years ago when I came on staff at a church, I heard about the effort to "reach the lost", and not in any uncertain terms....they had a number. 130 million. Wow. That's a bunch of people no matter how you slice it up. And of course I would like to slice it up. How many lost people here in Florida? I figure most of the "lost" are in Utah with many wives, or at least a big chunk of them. So maybe in Florida we only have a couple million, and probably most of them in Miami or the Keys. Easy to get lost down there in the Everglades. So 5 years later at a conference I hear the mission of the Anglican church is to reach the 130 million lost. Are you telling me in 5 years we haven't reached any of them? We aren't reaching 129 million and 8 hundred thousand? None of them have died or moved to another country? This needs more investigating. Perhaps counting the lost is like the census. We only look every 10 years to see how many are lost. I looked closely at this mysterious number. It turns out for many years now that is the number. 130 million. Even a few months ago at a national conference the grand pubah (or Primatial Vicar as he is properly referred to) stood before the thousands of Anglicans gathered to tell us our mission is to reach the....you guessed it...130 million "lost" people. Wow. We stink at this mission. Talk about Mission Impossible. Maybe on Easter instead of looking for eggs we should look for people. Now that would be a good event for a church. Like the egg hunt the hardest ones to find aren't really lost, they are just hiding in a really good spot. Perhaps we should look harder. I bet God can find them all.
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