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an anglicanized conversation
Today I had lunch with my good buddy Dan, one of the handful of Houghton friends Cherith and I have had the fortune to be reunited with since our return. Dan has had a completely different experience within the Church than I have, so it’s always interesting to talk all things ecclesial with him.
As we ate, I began describing how I have viewed some of the challenges of Anglican church-planting. On the one hand, there needs to be a devoted core, it seems, while on the other hand, at some point the group has to be concerned with loving the community and its people, inviting people who don’t know God to join us in knowing him. To me, the most puzzling aspect is how to approach the liturgy.
To an “average” evangelical Christian, liturgy is either a bad word or, at best, a word void of meaning. Yet every church fellowship shares in a liturgy; it’s just the way people do the things they do when they worship together. So when you’ve been doing certain things for a long time, it’s at the same time annoying yet not too difficult to transition to doing something different. The context for doing some practice is the same, yet the content might vary. Thus, I think it is obvious to say that in the US, much of the becoming-Anglican-process involves “switching teams,” so to speak; some Christians might even assess it as a “worship upgrade” (yes, I’ve heard this). The person moves from doing things one way to leveling up and doing things a better, improved way that somehow puts them closer to God. Now I obviously don’t agree with that, but stick with me.
Enter the average non-Christian. The typical evangelical liturgy can almost be seen as a gateway to a more complex liturgy. After all, how does one jump straight from no Christian liturgy to an ancient, complex one? And yet, this is happening every day in Africa. Christian conversion is exponential over there compared to the US, and the Anglican Church in Africa is certainly a part of that. If I were a non-Christian, probably the last thing I’d want is to have to try to swim in a sea of words and phrases and body movements and prayers that have no direct relation to the world I was already involved in!
All that to say, I have no idea why a non-Christian would want to become an Anglican Christian, unless this person were already an egg-head that didn’t mind reading a book every week at church gatherings. Still, not only do I know the liturgy that has been developed in the Church is important, but I also love it dearly (obviously not with the same love that I love God, but you get my drift). I love being able to join in saying words that have time on their side, that have greater minds than mind on their side, that have so many more minds on their side, words that I didn’t have to make up five minutes before the service. As Dan so eloquently mused, if you only had a screwdriver and a wrench you could fix a car, but it’d take you forever. What’s wrong with using tools that were created over much time and energy to do specific, efficient, good jobs?
And so, of course, we departed the cafeteria with no answers. To find our answers, we’re just going to have to see what happens.
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