David Holmes - Church Visit #1

Church name: All Souls Anglican Church
Church address: 25W741 Jewell Rd, Wheaton, IL 60187
Date attended: February 16, 2014
Church category: Significantly more liturgical

 Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

All Souls Anglican Church is very different from my regular church context (a contemporary, non-denominational church called Autumn Ridge Church). Perhaps the most immediate difference I noticed was their high attitude and reverence towards God. At All Souls, it felt like we were worshiping the almighty creator of the universe, with a heavy emphasis on honorific iconography and liturgical language. At Autumn Ridge, it seems like we worship God on a more personal level, with a stronger emphasis on individual praise music that reflects on personal transformation. All Souls also has a much more communal means of worship than does my regular church. The congregation is actively involved in the service, regularly responding to the prayers, texts, and scriptures readings. The congregation affirms their beliefs as a unified body through the recitation of the Nicene Creed. They repent of their sins together through a unison congregational confession, pray together the Lord’s Prayer, and take communion together by drinking from the same cup. This all contrasts Autumn Ridge where there is no interaction between the congregation and the speakers, no creedal recitation, rarely any confessionals, and individual bread and drink for communion.    

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?I found the communal nature of the congregation’s worship to be the most appealing aspect of the service. In particular, I appreciated the recitation of the Nicene Creed early on in the service, which establishes our foundational beliefs as a unified body and allows us to recognize our depravity, leading to communal repentance. I reveled in the profundity that unison confession transforms the congregation from a community of sinners to a community of the forgiven, allowing us to approach the Lord’s Table with a pure heart. I appreciated the unison Lord’s Prayer, which reminded me that we are in fellowship with God as a group of Christians, not only as an individual. In all, the communal worship was appealing because it generated a strong spiritual connection between the members of the congregation as well as created an environment that fosters a closer personal relationship with God.   

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
I found the liturgy and the way in which it was integrated into the sermon to be the most challenging aspect of the worship service. Although I greatly appreciated the highly reverent language in the bulletin for the congregation to recite, I sometimes found myself simply reading the text without reflecting on the significance of the words. Similarly, I thought that many of the hymns were musically challenging to sing, and I sometimes found myself and others mumbling as opposed to praising God. The sermon was also challenging, which I thought was out of place considering the material presented during the rest of the service.  Throughout the liturgy leading up the sermon, Scripture reading pervaded the service. One would expect the sermon to also use a passage of Scripture as its source of instruction. However, there was neither a reference to any previous Scripture reading nor any additional Scripture reading during the sermon. It seemed like an unrelated piece of information that disrupted the flow of the service.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
The theological concept of the church as the body of Christ was made much more apparent at All Souls than at my regular church context. With such a strong emphasis on developing one’s personal faith at Autumn Ridge, it is often easy to forget that we are all worshipping God together and for the same ultimate purpose. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27 says, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink…. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” The church may be multidimensional, but its purpose and function should be undivided.  All Souls made this key theological point evident through their communal participation in worship, confession, and communion.