Dear St. Luke’s,

I graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2014, which is just fifteen or twenty minutes away, off of… well… Seminary Rd. My class has the distinct honor of being the only class to not have a chapel their entire time as students in the school, which could explain my general skepticism toward elaborate liturgy. The summer before I began my time at VTS, the historic chapel burned down in an incense accident. It took nearly all three years of my time there for the administration to work with insurance and the permit office to have the old chapel turned into a prayer garden and to begin construction on the new chapel. Almost my entire time in Seminary the charred remains of the Chapel lived behind a temporary chain link fence, and we worshipped daily in a very plain large meeting room. A chancel and altar were built for the space, and per the fire marshal’s orders a very visible bright read fire alarm hung on the ceiling right above the altar, seemingly a reminder of why we were there and not in a proper worship space.

It was fine. It wasn’t great but it was fine. For some reason, going into seminary I had the expectation that every worship service would be more inspirational than the last, and with each class I completed worship would get deeper and deeper, but the opposite seemed to have been true. The more we learned, the more we liked to nit-pick the service to flex our liturgical muscles, and this made me feel less connected to my peers because I knew it would be a matter of time until I was up there leading worship, and they would dissect my mistakes as they became more resolute in their own convictions on the correct way to worship God. By the time I graduated, I longed for the days when I could just go to Church and be present with a community, and not have to worry about noticing all of the minute mistakes. I thought I would eventually be a chaplain in a school or hospital, but I could not bear the lack of charity that goes into planning and carry out worship.

Shortly after graduation, I married Leandra in the prayer garden made out of the ruins of that old chapel, the first such service to be held there, and in the shadow of the construction of the new chapel, no less. I have not really been into the new chapel, but I hope that the spirit that is in there is healthier than I remember, but honestly, I doubt it. Seminary is a weird place, where budding clergy have to make their own opinions, and what we do is painfully public, so maybe this is just the nature of the beast. For the most part, everyone was humbled in their first placements, and if they weren’t, they probably left ministry all together.

All of this is to give you context about my two rules in doing “church”, which you may hear me dictate to the acolytes on Sunday morning. These rules are applicable for everyone, regardless of whether they are preaching, serving, sitting in the pews, getting married or mourning. The rules are: do it slowly, and pretend like you know what you are doing. This is practical, because if you do those things, no one will notice if you mess up, but the intent behind it is to guard our spirits. The opinions we made about worship in Seminary may have made us feel smart, but it was a hallmark of spiritual immaturity. Of course, we should strive for perfection, but perfection will never happen. We will never find perfection in ourselves, or in our neighbor, and if we only notice the imperfections in worship, then we are no longer worshipping God and loving our neighbor, but just expressing our own insecurities.

We can think that very old Churches and Chapels are permanent, and their pews, lecterns and pulpits dictate the correct way to worship, but even if it does become apparent in our lifetime, they are all transient. We may find ourselves worshipping in a plain space that is the best we can muster, or we may know a generation of stability within our walls, but eventually the “right” way will eventually change, new opinions will form, and if we do not care for our soul, we will find ourselves completely out of rhythm on Sunday morning. If you make your time in Church about God and your neighbor and less about taking note of what is wrong or right, and if you do it slowly and pretend like you know what you are doing, then you may be able to let go and notice something new.

Blessings,

Nick