Church Name: Church of the Resurrection
Church Address: 935 W. Union Ave., Wheaton IL 60187
Date attended: Sunday, 2 February 2014
Church category: Anglican
Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
I usually attend Antioch Community Church in Wheaton, which is non-demoninational. Church of the Resurrection is an Anglican church, and there was much more liturgy involved. The service began with worship through music, which was a sort of fusion between traditional hymns and contemporary Christian songs. Interspersed with the music were short bits of liturgical content, including a call to worship, readings from the Gospels, and a brief prayer on the theme of the day. The celebrant would speak first and the congregation would respond with the words printed in the bulletin. One of the deacons then preached a sermon entitled "Why the Way of Weakness"? Antioch rarely takes communion, so I was interested to hear that Church of the Res takes it every week. Almost the entire second half of the service focused on Holy Communion. The service ended with a few more contemporary songs, the Prayer of Thanksgiving, the Blessing, and a dismissal.
What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
I appreciated that there was a variety of ages represented Rez. Though I didn't see very many elderly people there, there was a good mix of middle-aged, young adults, youth, children, and babies. Though I appreciate much about Antioch and love the people there, one thing that I haven't seen much of is intergenerational interaction, and most of the church members are college students or in the 20-30 age range. Oftentimes I feel that churches tend to keep their children's ministry programs quite separate from the rest of the church, and I really like that Rez is intentional about including their kids as a significant part of the church family. The children were in Sunday school for the first part of the service, but the celebrant invited them back in to the sanctuary about halfway through. The kids came in a little bit loudly, but that didn't seem to bother anyone. They were encouraged to participate in Holy Communion, either by partaking or by going up to be blessed. It was encouraging and heartwarming to worship in the midst of the young children present.
What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
I don't know if I would say I was "disoriented" by this, but it was interesting to see bishops and reverends in formal white robes next to other leaders wearing very casual attire. The senior pastor, Bishop Stewart Ruch, wasn't speaking the day that I attended Rez, but rather who spoke was the reverend in charge of the church's missions organization. I found out that it was normal for a different church leader to speak each week, and this struck me as being a bit unusual. The church I attend in my own town as well as Antioch both have head pastors who speak almost every week, save a few Sundays out of the year when another church leader or a guest speaker will take over. I don't know much about how leadership works in the Anglican church, but I am interested in learning more about it and about the leadership at Rez specifically.
What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
Something that this worship service illuminated for me was the importance of Holy Communion. As I mentioned before, Rez takes communion every week, and it is very much a community "event." Furthermore, it was not merely about physically eating the bread and drinking of the cup, but it consisted of several different parts. We sang the doxology together, gave thanks through community prayer, broke the bread, and each individually went up to a communion station in order to either partake or to be blessed. I think it is easy to forget the importance of saying the Lord's prayer, of taking communion, and of simply participating in community. The Church of the Rez truly felt like a family, and I appreciated the way it honored Christ through a heavy focus on the act of communion.
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