Church Hopping #2: Duke Chapel (ish), Emmaus Way, and Durham Resurrection Community (again)

I have now gone two Sundays in a row without setting foot in an actual church building, yet between those two Sundays, I have participated in 4.5 worship services (I'll explain the fraction in a moment). Actually, make that three Sundays and 5.5 services, because New Creation UMC meets in Healthy Start Academy (I'm counting buildings that look like churches but are no longer owned by churches as non-churches).

I have decided that Sunday evening worship services are the best thing ever. I spent all summer getting up at 7:00 a.m. on Sundays, and last school year it was 6:00. Today, I woke up a little before 9:00 and spent the morning getting work done. I felt a little transgressive, so, partly due to that feeling and partly because I was curious to see what they were doing for 9-11, I turned on Duke Chapel's live video stream on their website.

That's where I got the half a worship service in my total. Now, I'm sure I could devote an entire blog post to whether online worship is possible, and anyone who knows me at all could probably guess what my answer would be, but I'm going to save that, because one of my classes is actually going to spend some time looking at religion and technology this semester, so I'll have something more intelligent to say in a few months. Even if you think you can worship online, I definitely wasn't engaged enough for it to count. If you want to give it a shot, the video of today's service can be found here.

However, it was moving to see and hear what they had going on this morning. Mad props to worship director Meghan Feldmeyer, who is the woman and now owes me hangout time since 9-11 has passed. :) They incorporated a memorial act into the service where people brought white roses to lay before the altar as the choir sang "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem (which they performed entire this afternoon). The opening hymn, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," an adaptation of Psalm 23 that I thought was fitting. The choir, as usual, was glorious, and one anthem choice in particular was striking: the Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which includes these words penned by Wilfred Owen:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

They also used a litany for September 11 that incorporated lines from "O God Our Help in Ages Past." And also as usual, Dean Sam Wells' sermon was wonderful. He focused on the idea of Ground Zero and the images of ashes, recalling not only the dust that choked the air of Manhattan on 9-11 but also the dust from which we are made and to which we will return. Just go check out the sermon, I could listen to that man talk all day.

I did actually go to and participate in two other worship services today. The first was at Emmaus Way, which describes itself as an "emergent activist" church. Having spent a lot of time this summer getting to know and love the way Lockerbie Central UMC in Indy does church, this sounded really appealing. Plus, I've known the pastor there for a while, as one of his kids participated in the youth group I used to lead.

Emmaus Way meets at The Reality Center, another one of those former church buildings that now houses what I will happily call an incredible ministry even though it's not, strictly speaking, a church. I knew I would love this church from the moment I walked in. They meet in what used to be the sanctuary and is now more of a gym, but they set it up in a round. In the center were the musicians and a chair for the pastor, which conveniently swiveled. Flanking all sides were rows of chairs and a few couches. Art was set up all around the room, candles on end tables and in window sills, a gorgeous painting by Carole Baker representing the liturgical calendar gracing one corner. A low table holding communion elements was at one end of the oval made by the seats. The space was inviting and comfortable, with an air of anticipation.

If I had had any doubts from my first visual impression, a glance at the bulletin drove those away. The first song they did was by the Indigo Girls ("Hammer and a Nail"). The Emmaus Way website states that they are committed to supporting local, professional musicians, and they even have an Arts Pastor. The music was folksy but fresh, and the songs seemed to be from random sources, including one traditional hymn, two songs by the basics and one by Over the Rhine, but each song had a specific liturgical function, including a song of confession and a song of absolution.

The sermon was really more of a conversation, which reminded me of the Lyceum series Lockerbie Central did this summer (and apparently is a characteristic of much emergent worship out there). Emmaus Way is doing a series on Ordinary Time, and today the subject was vocation. The pastor, Tim Conder, offered some reflection and then opened the floor to let people share how they see their vocation tying into what they do for a living. He then went into an exploration of the book of Jonah as it relates to vocation, which I really enjoyed because for some reason Jonah has been coming up a lot lately in my readings for different things. Jonah's problem, Tim said, was not that he was afraid; it was that he knew that if he went to Ninevah and delivered God's message, God would show forgiveness to his enemies—and Jonah didn't want that.

I loved Emmaus Way's blend of ancient church tradition (which today included a reading from the Book of Common Prayer, a rite for the dead as a nod to 9-11) and contemporary/"secular" elements. Having spent the summer around people talking a lot about the emergent church movement and figuring out how to participate in it in context, here I was seeing it actually happening. I will definitely be back.

I left straight from Emmaus Way to go worship with Durham Resurrection Community for a second time. I had already met with two of their musicians earlier in the day because, being me, it took less than a week for me to get on the worship team. Last week, we met at a rock quarry; this week, we met in a member's home. We gathered in the living room, read Scripture, shared joys and concerns, broke bread and sang praises. I even played the cajon on one song. I've enjoyed the laid back, familial feel of that group, and it's nice that it is an odd conglomeration of friends of mine and people I don't know (or am now getting to know).

I'm really enjoying this church hopping thing. I want to maintain some sort of stability as I visit around (hence getting plugged in with Resurrection already and hopefully going back to Emmaus Way as much as I can), but visiting around is already proving pretty educational and I've only been at it for two weeks. I've already had a Quaker I know invite me to a Friends meeting, and another friend of mine attends an African American Catholic parish I'd love to visit.

But I'm also hoping to expand beyond the walls of Christianity. Especially after last week's service in Goodson Chapel that included reflections from Imam Abdullah Antepli, and after watching the video of an interfaith panel held this past week at Duke Divinity, I'm planning to check out Friday Jummah prayers with Muslim Life at Duke and weeknight meditation and discussion with the campus Buddhist group. I've also been meaning to actually attend a service at Judea Reform, the Jewish Reform congregation in Durham (where I've sung in a concert before and whose sanctuary I adore). Worship adventure is out there!