Church name: All Souls Anglican Church
Church address: 25W741 Jewell Rd, Wheaton, IL 60187
Date attended: February 9, 2014
Church category: Significantly more liturgical from Willow Creek Community Church, where I attend
Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
The worship service I attended was significantly more conservative than what I am used to. I arrived a few minutes late, as I usually do for church. Instead of automatically slipping into the sanctuary to find a seat, I found the door manned by two ushers who would not allow me to enter until the opening prayers had finished. The service began with a significant portion of corporate recitation and scripture readings. Typically when I walk into the service, my late entry is unnoticed due to the overwhelming pounding of the bass. However, the sanctuary was silent, and my entrance was acutely noticed at All Souls Anglican Church. Heads from all over the sanctuary turned when the usher opened the door for me to walk in.
From beginning to end the service was entirely different from my regular context – the singing, the long readings of scripture, the communal prayer and liturgy, and the long-standing traditions of Holy Communion. I very much felt out of my element.
What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
At several points in the worship service, long passages of scripture were read aloud, including one passage read aloud by a Wheaton College professor. At Willow Creek Community Church where typically I attend, I am used to my Pastor reading a few scattered verses or a short passage during his sermon, and that’s it. I loved the opportunity I had to just close my eyes and absorb each powerfully spoken word of scripture as it was read off the pages of the Holy text.
I also enjoyed the content of the Sermon very much. Isaiah 58 was read, and the Rector shared from the passage of the sheep and the goats. He challenged us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and set prisoners free. He connected this freeing of others to freeing ourselves; that we become free when we love our neighbors. I loved the gospel-centered focus of his message and his emphasis on social justice.
I also enjoyed seeing Deaconesses and other women in leadership roles in the church. It was refreshing and added a diversity I have not seen much in Western church contexts.
What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
I found the singing to be dry and difficult for me, as I did not recognize the tunes. I love to raise my hands freely and close my eyes, entering into the singing fully. It is one of the ways I most enjoy giving glory to God. It was difficult to feel as if I was in an environment where that kind of response to singing was uncommon.
The church was also extremely ethnically and racially homogenous. I scanned the room a few times in hopes of finding some kind of racial/ethnic diversity to no avail. That was difficult for me because I did not find myself surrounded by an accurate representation of the body of Christ.
Communion was a rather disorienting experience for me. Right before communion, all the squealing children were allowed into the sanctuary. As we lined up, I was overwhelmed by the distraction of children chattering all around me. When we made our way to the front of the sanctuary, we kneeled and were served communion from a common cup. Other than one time in Catholic Mass with a high school friend, I have never drunk out of a common cup, so it was more foreign to me than anything.
What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
The richness of communal prayer and liturgy is something that my regular context lacks. I love the depth of many voices coming together as one, reciting words from the Book of Common Prayer, a text the Anglican Church has honored as sacred for generations. I felt as if I was entering into a tradition of worship with roots much deeper than those I had experienced in my regular context.
There is something to be said about the sacred nature in which the Holy Gospel is carried into and out of the service during the Procession and Recession. It is handled with care, read with care, and the centerpiece of the worship service. The elements of communion are handled with the same type of respect and honor. I have only taken communion once in my regular context, and it was a much swifter ordeal than I experienced at All Souls. I felt that All Souls tapped into the theological depth of what it means to remember Christ’s death through the sacraments. There is much to be learned from the richness of Anglican tradition.
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