From the Rector: Thinking About Our Sunday Liturgies

Dear friends,

Of all the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our congregation’s life, I think one of the most significant has also been one of the simplest. It changed our service times.

Before the pandemic, Incarnationians worshiped at 8:00, 9:00 and 11:15 each Sunday, with a somewhat different worship style at each service. In March 2020 we were abruptly thrown into a new rhythm with a single Zoom liturgy each Sunday. It was spring of 2021 before we returned to a regular pattern of more than one Sunday service. Since then our 8:00 liturgy has looked a lot like the 8:00 liturgy before the pandemic: a spoken service without music, using the venerable Elizabethan language of Rite I from the Prayer Book. But those who previously worshiped at 9:00 or 11:15 have come together into a single 10:15 service.

This is something people often tell me they are grateful for—and I’m grateful for it too. It's helped us create a closer-knit congregational culture. For one thing, people see each other at worship when they might previously have come at different times. But having a single 10:15 service has also lessened our tendency to divide ourselves into “9:00-ers and 11:15-ers.” Today our 10:15 service is its own thing but combines some aspects of what both those liturgies were like before 2020. Like at the old 9:00 service, we use the modern language of Rite II for most of the year and draw from some broader musical sources in addition to the standard blue hymnal. Like at the old 11:15 service, we have a choir that wears vestments and sits in the chancel (which allows the choir to take a leadership role throughout the service, but also, very pragmatically, frees up 25 seats of congregational seating!). During Lent this year we also switched into Rite I and used some service music chants familiar to those who used to worship at 11:15.

Bringing together two liturgical cultures isn’t always easy. It sometimes means trying on a practice that may feel awkward to one person, while to another it’s a familiar friend. I’m grateful, though, that it’s allowed us to truly feel more like a single congregation than we once did. Meanwhile, our parish Liturgy Committee is getting back off the ground to allow us to have an arena for reflecting together and making plans for our worship life. In the fall that Committee hopes to lead some congregation-wide conversations about our hopes for the future of our worship. Please stay tuned (and let me know if you’d like to be a part of that Committee).

Back in January at our Annual Meeting, I shared that I thought we might have to go back to a three-service Sunday schedule as early as this fall. I’m frankly relieved to say that’s no longer true. Our attendance at 10:15 has stabilized at about 100 people, which feels pleasantly full but not so crowded that we can't welcome newcomers well. Of course, I hope in the future we’ll continue to grow. There may still come a time whenwe need to consider expanding our schedule. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, with due discernment about all the decisions involved. For now, I’m grateful that we get to be a two-service congregation with a simpler, more contemplative liturgy at 8:00 and a livelier, musical one at 10:15. It’s a good place to be.

In Christ’s love,

Stephen