Joshua Olsen - Church Visit #1

Church Name: Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church
Church Address: 41 N. Park Blvd, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
Date Attended: 2/9/14 7:30AM
Church Category: Liturgical

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

o   Most of my life I’ve either attended a Baptist or a nondenominational church where the closest we get to strict liturgy is the occasional communion service.  This service was different from what I was used to but not as strict as I would expect an orthodox or catholic church to be.  Everything that was going to happen was laid out bare in the service handout, no room for pleasant surprises here.  The service began with a thanksgiving for baptism (with imagery of water being splashed in an infant baptism pool) and a hymn (Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies.)  This was followed by a community giving of peace (“Peace be with you, peace be with you”) and a reciting of “Kyrie Eleison,” “…you bring light to those in the darkness” which I had never heard before (Apparently it’s a common opening liturgy, shows you how much strict liturgy I’ve experienced.)  Next was a long hymn of praise, “Glory to God in the Highest” (4 pages of the flyer) followed by a reading of Isaiah 58:1-9 (fasting and righteousness, “your light shall break forth like the dawn.”), 1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (seeking God’s wisdom, understanding gifts bestowed by God) and Matthew 5:13-20 (salt of the earth, let your light shine.)  Finally was the [short] sermon itself (by a woman Pastoral Intern, which I have absolutely no qualms with but it’s also very new to me), the Apostle’s Creed, tithes, more hymns, the Lord’s Prayer, and last but not least, communion.

·         What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

o   I was at first impressed by the colors of the chapel itself, the windows were fresh and new with a rainbow of colors and depictions of the cross and doves then also the elaborate tapestries.  Nothing was obnoxiously ornate but it provided a pleasantly peaceful environment.  The fact that multiple persons played intricate parts in the service was also interesting; there was a cantor (which I believe was the regular pastor) and the pastoral intern along with other women who read the scriptures.  The cantor wore a green sash and a white robe while the pastor wore a white robe with a rope around the waist.  Imagery played a key part in the whole service, from the water being splashed to the fact that everything was tied to light, which was the topic of the day’s sermon.  I think that imagery should be used more often in worship as it helps to keep the mind awake, looking for the connections, but then also to enrich the service itself.  The communion was done effectively and respectfully, we all knelt down in front of the stage to receive our bread (which, I might add, was particularly tasty!)

·         What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

o   Despite having such a strict outline for the service, it was hard to tell when a prayer actually had begun because the cantor made no motions or actions other than normal speech.  It was also difficult to follow the words of any hymn, which may have been because there were only about 15-20 other people in the sanctuary (and most of them were elderly who woke up at 7:30 in the morning!) but this caused me to find the hymns as not fully effective worship.
As I said before, I had no problem with the fact that the pastoral intern was female but I was slightly underwhelmed with her sermon.  She spoke about light and darkness and how Jesus is the Light and used her own life story of how she was on a car ride with “some guys” at night.  She explained that because of the darkness, no one could see each other’s faces, and that helped to bring out their life stories of hurt and sin.  While this story works, I feel a more experienced pastor could find a better illustration.  But, this isn’t her fault, only needs more years under her belt.

·         What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

o   As I said before, I loved the connections with imagery, both physical and sung.  After the Pastoral Intern had told her story, she explained how the “waves of baptismal waters wash away darkness” and “light and love crash into our world… described with words of light like Illumination… these words have no boundaries but fill whatever space they are given.”  Christ’s sacrifice “breaks the container of life and lets [his] light flow everywhere, everything is made new.”  It is good to see this and understand that even the Old Testament used the imagery of light to explain that, in faith, you are made new, “your light shall break forth like the dawn.”  In Christ, we are made new, we are made light.  Its cliché, but we must let our light shine, “no one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.”