Mary Karg - Church Visit #1

Church name: St. Peter's

Church address: 110 West Madison St. Chicago, IL 60602

Date attended: 02/16/14

Church category: More liturgical

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

The church I regularly attend (Church of the Beloved) is technically Baptist by denomination, and contains very little to no liturgical elements. We usually begin the service with worship music, then announcements, greeting one another, Bible reading, and a sermon. The format of the service is usually the same, but there is no bulletin or program to follow and no recitation or repeating back to the church officials. At St. Peters, almost everything is carefully timed and scripted to run smoothly. There was also no point in the service in which the churchgoers interacted with one another. Another interesting note is that at my church, we take communion on a monthly basis. During the mass service, communion is always served. There were a lot of different parts to the service as well, all very carefully planned out so that they flowed into each other seamlessly. 

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

I really enjoyed the way in which the rites, prayers and readings all seemed to tie back to a longstanding church tradition. While I love the loose and flexible feel of my own church, I also loved how at St. Peters the congregation (who regularly attended) knew what to do and what to expect, and could worship within the bounds of centuries of church tradition. It connected those who were present to the church fathers of the past in a powerful way. There was a sense of, “we are doing things this way for a reason - these rituals are an important part of worship and have served the saints for years.” It also gave a sense of God’s faithfulness throughout time because the hymn that we sang has been sung by Christians to the Lord in a very different time period, and is still being sung today. 

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

The reason I go to the Church of the Beloved is because of the sense of community and genuine fellowship that we foster there. Not only do we greet each other at the beginning of the service, but we also stay afterwards and eat together. Most of the church body stays and may linger for up to several hours after the sermon has ended. In contrast, at St. Peters we never greeted our fellow churchgoers, and at the end of the service everyone filed out without fellowshipping. Another confusing thing which happened (this may just be my own naivety) was that when I went up to take communion, I tried to take the wafer out of the priest/deacon’s hand, and he looked at me in confusion and wouldn’t let go. I panicked and hurried away without it, and only realized later that you are supposed to wait until they drop it into your palm. 

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

I really enjoyed the section of mass where we did Prayers of the Faithful, in which the priest prayed for the leaders of the church and of our country and the congregation responded with “Lord, hear our prayer.” In 1 Timothy 2:1-2 we are urged to pray for “all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives,” and this passage of scripture finally made sense to me as we were praying along with other believers for those in authority. The sense of order, direction and tradition at St. Peter’s church contributed to a sense of duty as God’s people to uphold His word and carry out the mission given to us by Jesus. Although my home church fits my “style” better, there was much to be learned from St. Peter’s role in decades of faithful God-honoring Catholic churches.