Church Hunting.
After failing baptism classes twice I
got the message! I also had this sort of inner compulsion to take a
serious look at other churches.
First up was the local Anglican church.
A very pretty sandstone neo-gothic building just a few hundred yards
from where I lived. The Adventist church I had attended was always
full of peiople. I used to get there ten minutes early so that I
could get a front seat. The Anglican church up the road was not like
that. I did arrive ten minutes early and found no trouble getting a
front seat, I was the only one there. Eventually maybe a dozen
elderly people drifted in and sat right up the back.
The service was 'Morning Prayer” from
the 1662 Prayer Book. Anglican readers may not see any problem with
this. That, even a generation ago, was part of their problem! They
did not see how foreign it was to anyone not brought up to it!
Certainly in the Adventist services we
used books. One took one's own Bible and Hymn book, and there were
spares for any who did not have their own. In the Anglican Church
there were hymn books, so far so good, but there was also the Prayer
Book. Definitely not, in modern parlance “user friendly”.
I did manage to find “Morning Prayer”
- perhaps the page number was on the hymn board.
However the service is not contiguous
in the Prayer Book. The collect for the day – is in a totally
different part of the Prayer Book. Then there are the canticles. For
instance after the first reading there is the heading TE DEUM
LAUDAMUS … and the Te Deum canticle follows. After the Te Deum if
you had time to read the minuscule print rubrics it says “or this
canticle” and the Benedicite, Omnia Opera is printed. So old chums
know that if the minister leads into the Te Deum then you read that
and then flick over a couple of pages past the Benedicite. Or if he
starts saying “All ye works of the Lord …” then you flick past
the Te Deum to the Benedicite.
After the second reading the process is
repeated with saying either the Benedictus or the Jubilate
Deo.
Simple if you know it. Totally
bewildering if this is your first time in an Anglican church! And if
you are 15 years old: embarrassment unlimited!
But wait there's more! There was an
incessant cycle of standing, sitting and kneeling. If you are brought
up to that liturgy it is doubtless obvious when you should be doing
what. If you are new to it, and worse right up the front where you
have to continually turn around to see which of the three positions
everyone else is adopting now it is 'embarrassment unlimited'
squared!
At one point the minister came down and
gave me a prayer book open at the right place. A kind thought, but it
didn’t help!
Needless to say I did not go back !
However this inner push to search for a
church was still there. I decided on a cunning plan. I would catch
the train into the city and go to any of the large city churches
where I could be safely anonymous. Oh, and I would sit right up the
back!
I started doing this. Systematically I
went round different denominations. St. Andrew’s (Anglican)
cathedral, Central Methodist mission, Congregational, Presbyterian. I
think I tried a more local Baptist church. They all seemed much the
same. Well the trimmings were different, but underneath they seemed
the same.
All this time I had a nagging inner
push to try a particular local church. I held out resolutely against
this intuition. I knew where the church was. it was at Turramurra
(next station up the railway line) in the street that had the Masonic
hall on the corner. I didn’t know what denomination it was, and I
didn’t look. I just held out and kept going into the city where
no-one knew me. This went on, I think, for about eighteen months.
Eventually I gave in to my nagging
compulsion and went to this local church. It turned out to be a
Methodist church. When I went in it was full. Oldies, parents, young
children (the “youth” were absent only because they went to the
evening service). I felt it at once: I was home.
From the surprised look on the
minister’s face when I shook hands at the door after the service
and said “I want to join your church” I may have been unusually
forthright. After a pause he stammered that they would probably be
having confirmation classes in the fall. A matron behind me was
quicker and hurried to explain that I really should try the evening
service since all the people my age went to it. In general, top marks
to her, but in this case I wasn’t looking for young people, I was
looking for a spiritual family. I had just found it.
I was baptised and confirmed in that
church on 23rd April 1967. I can fix that date because I
have got out the certificate and had a look! I had just turned 18,
and my sister Louise, who at that stage had chucked religion
completely, came to the service. My parents and older brother were
overseas (separately) stationed in Malaysia with the Air Force.
It may seem as though I was finally
safely on the spiritual path. That is generally about the time young
Christians get tripped up. If you have not read C. S. Lewis' quirky
book about the trials of a new Christian “the Screwtape Letters”
do read it!
Spiritual trials, pitfalls and disaster
were just around the corner for me too.
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