So this morning I had my first experience of church in the US. I went to Tenth Presbyterian Church in the city centre. It was great.
Before the service began there was a period of people being encouraged to sit quietly and prepare while someone sang two songs. He was a very fine singer and worth listening to, though I have to admit I found it hard to take his first song seriously - He's Got the Whole World in His Hands is a song I associate with 5 yr-olds. We then had a welcome and notices before a call to worship from 1 John. The congregation then stood (this wasn't announced but was indicated by an asterisk on the service sheet) to sing the doxology. Following a prayer and a hymn, we read part of psalm 104 responsively then sang the Gloria. None of this was announced, we just did what the service sheet told us to do next. We had a spirited saying of the apostles' creed together and then sat down for the intercessions.
The bible reading was part of a sequential reading through scripture and was introduced at length by the elder who read it, taking care to point out the context and the meaning of the passage with applications for us. It was from Genesis 7 and I am ashamed to say I cannot remember the points he drew out other than the phrase 'the Lord shut him in' which was very important. Anyone remind me why?
We were at the 11am service but I was impressed to see that in the service sheet it said that at the 9am service a minister would leave at this point to teach the sermon to the elementary school students.
The next item warmed my heart wonderfully. In bold type it announced that we would have the 'Baptism of Covenant Children'. Four were baptised at our service, aged betweed 6 weeks and 2 years old. The senior minister asked questions of the parents and the church then baptised and prayed for each child. He took the names of the children as the basis for his prayers - so he prayed that the child named John would grow to be a disciple whom Jesus loved, the child named Luke would be a careful observer of the Lord's works, the child named Elise Catherine would be pure and set apart for God.
Then another hymn and the offertory during which the singer did his stuff again. The sermon was the second in a series of two on baptism and was particularly focussed on explaining the practice of infant baptism. It wasn't the clearest or most compelling explanation I've heard and did seem to deny the possibility of infant faith (or at least to devalue it) which was a shame. You could have left thinking that faith is a human work not a divine gift. On the other hand, it was a mile better than any explanation of infant baptism I've ever heard in an Anglican church and it was refreshing to hear a sermon aimed at this sort of ecclesiological discussion.
Prayer, hymn, blessing.
I was really encouraged to meet with other Christians and to remember how much more in common I have with them than the differences between us. That we know and love the same Lord says it all.
There were lots and lots of things I really liked about this church. But it's quite a long way into the city and it's a big church so I think I'll probably settle somewhere nearer and smaller. They're planning a church plant in the new year up near where I am so that's another possibility.