Sunday Worship: Emmanuel United Reformed Church

This morning I was invited to worship at one of the United Reformed Churches here in Cambridge - Emmanuel.  I was invited to join our Director of New Testament Studies and his wife, and there were quite a few Westminster folks in the chairs as well. 

As a seminarian, it is sometimes a wonderful thing to just sit in the chair and worship; to not be overwhelmed by the pressures of evaluating or thinking through what I would have done.  This morning, as different as it could have been, it felt quite like something I love to be a part of...

a worship service. 

I will say there were some pangs of missing home - we sang "Down to the River to Pray" and the minister included a bit from Flannery O'Connor's story, The River. (She's one of my favorites!)  There were also some moments of panic...I never quite got the melody on one of the hymns...even after 5 verses!

These familiar things in a place not so familiar made me think of when visitors come and sit in our own church pews or chairs; do we really know how what we say or sing or the actions we take will manifest themselves? 

 Will our pouring of the baptismal waters remind one of the creek that streamed by their childhood homes? 

 Will our singing of Hymn #172 take them back to their grandmother's side, where they learned the now both familiar and forgotten tune?

How will our version of The Lord's Prayer open their ears to hear it in a new and different way?

There are so many things at work in our worship services, opportunities for us to encounter the Holy, in ways we often never imagined, or better yet, planned.   

Worshiping this morning reminded me of (for lack of a better term) those opportunities.  

And in good Walters' fashion, I took my sermon notes:

 (Know if I ever attend a worship service where you preach, my note taking habit is for one and all...)

And y'all, the walk to the church was just about the next best thing to worship.

  I mean, look at this:

It's not normally this muddy, but even with the mud, doesn't it just look so charming?  (The other picture I took is mostly of my hand, so I'll have to walk back and get another picture.  It was so green, with bits of frost here and there!)

All in all, it was a good day.  The opportunities to learn never cease to amaze me, and I am grateful for professors and friends who take the time to answer what seems at times my

 never-ending-stream-of-curiosities.  

I was trying to think of a prayer to end on, and this poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "A Child's Evening Prayer", seems to fit how I feel best.  Blessings, Katy

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay

God grant me grace my prayers to say:

O God! preserve my mother dear

In strength and health for many a year;

And, O! preserve my father too,

And may I pay him reverence due;

And may I my best thoughts employ

To be my parents' hope and joy;

And O! preserve my brothers both

From evil doings and from sloth,

And may we always love each other,

Our friends, our father, and our mother:

And still, O Lord, to me impart

An innocent and grateful heart,

That after my last sleep I may

Awake to thy eternal day!

                                   Amen.