St. Margaret's Episcopal Church

Our van is finally kaput, so we were Episcopalians this morning.

Since we couldn't all fit in the truck to go to church, we decided to walk together as a family to one close by. The most viable one was an Episcopal church. I have visited Catholic Churches before with friends or for funerals, but Episcopal was a first for all of us.

It is surprisingly a lot like the Catholic church service in form and yet was a more comfortable building/service, if that makes sense. There was a lot of liturgy and congregational response. About half of the songs were familiar to us (we went to their contemporary service). They had some small stained glass windows. Their building was welcoming. Phillip noted how everything was pointed toward the Lord's Supper. The congregation sat in three sections all pointed toward the stage. The table in the middle of the stage held the bread and wine. The bishop (?) only went up on stage when it was time for Communion. Everything else was done from the main floor. 

I was glad they had everything spelled out in the bulletin ~ the songs, the readings, congregational response. They did have it in two different sections that we had to go back and forth on. We were confused at first but figured it out. We loved how serious and sound it was: Scripture, the Lord's Prayer, the Nicene Creed, thanksgiving, prayers. It was filled with doctrine, and we were glad to see that as a part of the service.

The sermon was short, but it was Scriptural and to the point. The kids were nervous about Communion because it was different than our tradition. A greeter had told us that any baptized believer could participate. We all went forward and knelt around the stage. Then the bishop (rector? priest?) came by and gave each person a wafer cracker saying, "The Body of Christ, Bread from Heaven" to each of us.  Then a lady in a white robe passed by with a chalice of wine and said, "The Blood of Christ, Poured out for us." (I think that's what she said.) Some people dipped their wafer in the wine and some took a drink from the cup. We all dipped. Except Liz. She thought she was supposed to eat the wafer, and therefore did not have a wafer to dip. And she didn't drink; so she is now the only one in our family who has never tasted wine. 

Our family sitting together for a liturgical church service which we walked to from our home. It was quite a cozy throw-back experience.

We have acquired a new-to-us van since this morning (good work, Phillip!), so we'll be back to our regular church next week. But we did enjoy the excursion.