In the last two Sundays, I’ve worshipped in two historic American churches. The first, last Sunday, was Park Street Church in Boston. Its heritage being a key stop along the way for slaves fleeing their oppression in the earlier 19th century. The worship style was a traditional liturgy. It was a blessing to sing hymns that were rich in theological content and classical in style. The sermon was an excellent O.T. exposition which was illustrated with fascinating archeological facts seasoned with illustrations and humor.
Today we worshipped at the historic Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia. The Falls Church is older than the USA. Among its historic parishioners is George Washington, who served as a vestryman. Falls Church is well known in some circles for its stand against the culture that has developed in the Episcopal church. Falls Church is now an Anglican congregation but lost their historic building in a court fight. The church now meets in a rented high school gym and has an amazing music ministry. You can’t really tell there is a leader, the music was contemporary in style and just flowed naturally in the service of worship. The music was worship of God without calling attention to itself. The sermon was well crafted: biblically sound, culturally relevant and punctuated with personal stories that supported the theme without distracting from the theme of the sermon. It was good to join the people in saying the Apostle’s Creed.
Two historic churches, biblical, gospel centered, diverse. The body of Christ is wonderful in its varied expressions.
Monthly Archives: March 2014
historic churches
seeking balance
I’ve heard this quoted a could of times in the last few days and it is attributed to Donald Gee (I’m told he was an English leaders)…
If you have the word alone you dry up
If you have the Spirit alone you blow up
and I am told, he also added…
If you have both, you grow up
balance and maturity, they are important
on the way
Just heard a story of the 1989 celebration of the October Revolution in Moscow, USSR. Someone gets into the parade, which has marching soldiers, and shiny missiles (pointed at USA), carrying a banner. They unrolled the banner which said “72 years going nowhere.”
Followers of Jesus are heading to an eternity of bringing glory to God in heaven and are on a journey of doing that now. This is where we are going.
Where are you going?