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Ship of Fools: Central Christian Church, Glendale, Arizona, USA
The Mystery Worshipper
Shipmate
Ship of Fools: Central Christian Church, Glendale, Arizona, USA
The wonder of Christmas preached to a numbing drum beat
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Comments
I hope that you will find your way back again...you missed out on your ornament that we handed out at the door at the end of service. I'll save one for you.
Have a Merry Christmas!
I must look up the rest of that poem.
I do remember one memorable Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve...some person had set up a blue sparkle drum kit near the altar! Almost all the "old timers" (including my mother) were scandalized. I was intrigued but worried. Would the drums be too loud? Would the priest get annoyed and denounce the proceedings?! No! The drummer played with brushes and the acoustic guitar player played softly and "Silent Night" was sung acapella and all was right with the world. This was probably the introduction of the "Folk Mass" that was gaining popularity in our little part of the Virginia/D.C./Maryland part of the country in the early 1970's.
Drums can be beautifully played so as not to blast anyone's hearing or hearing aids. Unfortunately, drums can also be hit as hard as humanly possible. I really do not like "Praise Bands" of any sort. Gregorian chants are more to my liking.
But I’m afraid I really don’t get the idea of Communion by putting the elements on tables in the back and inviting people to help themselves—and without prayer or the Warrant/words of institution. That just seems bizarre to me, not to mention at odds with almost two millennia of Christian practice. Does anyone know the theology or ecclesiology behind it?
Even the Dominical Words only, and perhaps some form of extempore prayer, are needed, surely, to give the elements some relevance.
It seems to me that self-serve communion from a back table is not the way that Jesus wanted it to be done, judging from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 and other accounts of what we've come to call the Last Supper.
I'm encouraged that the pastor was moved to file the comment that he filed above. I will visit this church again ("Be vigilant, for you know neither the day nor the hour") to see if anything has changed.
I was glad to see his comment too, and that’s one reason I asked about the theology or ecclesiology behind this particular practice. I thought that if @DeanKuest is still reading, he might be able to shed some light.
I see on their website that they believe baptism “symbolically represents a believer’s identification of Christ’s death and resurrection. It proclaims how we have died to our old self and have new life through Jesus Christ.” (I can’t find anything on their website about their understanding of communion.). My experience is that that kind of understanding of baptism typically goes with a memorialist understanding of communion, as does the practice of what we’ve been calling self-serve communion. But again, maybe not in this case. Hence my curiosity.
Still only two benches in the lobby, but today they were mercifully empty of young people oblivious to the seniors in their midst who would have welcomed a seat. In fact, the lobby was pretty empty of anyone. (The auditorium did fill up nicely, though, as the music portion progressed.)
I wouldn't call the pastries day-old. I'd call them week-old. Instead of charging me $1.00 for a cinnamon bun, they should have paid me $1.00 to take one off their hands so they wouldn't have to hold it over for yet another week.
The music was all hard Christian rock, very uninspiring at least to me. The drums were enclosed in the obligatory Plexiglas shield but, if anything, were even louder than they were at my last visit.
Communion was handled differently. The pastor said that the elements represented the fact that Jesus gives us all that we need. No words of institution were spoken; no mention today of the Body and Blood, as mention was made during my last visit. Instead of self-serve, ushers handed a tray of bread morsels and a ceramic goblet of grape juice to the first person in each row. We helped ourselves and then held the tray for the person next to us.
The sermon was again by the senior pastor via video feed.
The campus pastor made an interesting comment: "It's hard to connect when everyone around you is going in a different direction." We're all headed in the same direction, but I prefer to get there via a different route. I won't be back.
During a break in the proceedings I asked him, if the community celebrated communion.
Sure, he said, but it is only a symbol. I thought you didn't have any symbols, I said.
What was his reply, or reaction?