The Chronicles of Christ Church

Singing

Once a month we gather as a church for a fellowship meal and to work on our singing. Sunday worship is in some sense a command performance for our King and so we believe it should be brought forth from our best efforts. We receive our vocal training from a professional singing instructor who teaches us our parts (soprano, alto, tenor bass), directs us as a whole, and makes CD's with which we can practice our singing parts at home with our families. We are sounding better over time.

Soprano

Some sopranos.

Alto

Tenor

Bass

Movie Nite

We had our first "Movie Nite" at St. Andrew's. About a dozen folks showed up for an opening night screening of Amazing Grace. We plan to do this at least quarterly: see a movie and then decompress/deconstruct over espresso afterward.

You Gotta Think Big

As St. Andrew's Community Church get's off the ground we have begun to think long-term. What does the church look like 10, 20, 50 years down the road? Since we have intentionally committed ourselves to being a church that plants churches we have been thinking through what that looks like. One workable model is modified off of the Anglican Cathedral system. A large mother church (which fleshes out a broader vision liturgically and architecturally and even educationally) functions as a "cathedral" to smaller outlying churches (parishes). Some evangelical and reformed churches use this model at some level but what we envision is something more comprehensive.

The cathedral will be an intentionally well-designed facility. A church built to convey the glory of God to generations far into the future. It would be a humming beehive of liturgical activity equipped with a massive pipe organ and staffed by a professional chief musician who is capable of training music leaders at the parish level and of composing new arrangements for worship. The pastor of the cathedral would be a senior minister and experienced homiletician who can train interns and parish ministers in the art of preaching and leading worship. Also, staffing the cathedral would be a pastor/teaching elder who holds the position of “theologian in residence.” His job is to teach conferences, act as a theological resource to parish ministers, and to publish books, articles, and web documents.

In addition to all this, all the churches are inter-connected at a significant level for the purpose of cross-pollinating on the creative level, local and on-going accountability, and assisting one another as the need arises. This inter-connection would include significant interaction between all the congregations (parish and cathedral) via joint services, special services, conferences and various camps and retreats.

This cathedral model would be applied in a rather tight geographic circle, perhaps no more than 20 miles in any direction. This is done so that the entire system itself functions as a giant parish where serendipitous contact between congregants and clergy is a constant occurrence.

Finally, as a parish becomes large enough it will become its own cathedral.

Session Meeting

We had our first Session (elder board) meeting on Tuesday night.

Vets

I've run into to quite a few veterans returning from Iraq recently. They almost all fit a similar profile, angry young men. Many seem to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. It seems to me that this is an area that a High Church Calvinism can offer a unique service to these young, damaged men and women. They need to be re-programmed to civilian life and, if they are not Christians, they need to see that life is not a purposeless series of brutal events. Liturgy can be a useful tool here. By its sheer profundity and repetition, we are re-programmed each week to see the unseen and truth. Our vets need that (as we all do).

I stopped by my local American Legion hall today to introduce myself. I will be dropping by the local Legion Halls and VFW's over the next few weeks to introduce myself and offer the services of St. Andrew's to any vets that want them.

February 11, 2007

Here's some shots from around St. Andrew's on this past Sunday. The service began with some new members taking their vows.