Growing up this was not a concept I was familiar with. I grew up in a very loving moderate United Methodist Church. My family was close with the pastor, actually I think everyone in the church would probably say they were. I went to Sunday School every Sunday, youth club on Wednesdays and when I was a child and my parents lead the teenage youth group I went along to countless retreats, rallies and mission trips. We had hymnals, we had pews, we had potlucks, we had sacraments and creeds, but I never in my life would have thought of it as "dead."
Today I am raising my kids in a great big, beautiful, stone Episcopal Church with an organ, hymnals, stained glass windows, creeds and even a little chanting and incense on occasion. We live in a city that some consider to be a hub for the mega church. Focus on the Family is headquartered here and New Life and all it's branches are here plus tons of Christian organizations are based here like Compassion International, Young Life, etc. I feel pretty confident that some people may look upon the pointy stone tower and think "dead church."
Here's the truth, there are certainly some mainline congregations that might in some ways fit this description. There are churches that have become merely a gathering place for one or two families holding onto the past and watching the doors close before they relent to giving up power or allowing change. There are some clergy who see "traditional" as an excuse to phone it in and put little effort toward innovation or excellent worship. Yes, they do exist.
However, I grew up in a mainline church, I worked in four mainline churches (two as an ordained United Methodist pastor), supplied in 15-20 mainline churches (supply means fill in on a Sunday for clergy when they go on vacation), been involved with the five mainline churches my husband as worked in and attended countless others and I can say with full certainty they are not "dead" churches.
It's hard and not helpful or honest to attempt to speak for an entire denomination let alone a collection of several denominations (the term mainline usually encompasses several historic denominations like United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Congregational, etc.). I can only speak to my own experiences and from my own perspective.
Sometimes I feel like mainliners are so careful about not offending others or excluding others or seeming to put down others that we rarely go to bat for ourselves. I in no way intend to put down others and am not looking to compare, but rather give a fair hearing to the hymnal users of the world. And of course, not all mainliners use hymnals or organs. In my own tradition there has been a push toward more "contemporary" forms of worship for a long time and it is not uncommon to walk into a United Methodist Church and find a pastor in jeans, a screen with lyrics and a drum set.
But this is my experience. Sometimes we kneel. I never did this growing up but now that I worship at an Episcopal Church I do it often and it feels good ... sort of. I struggle to keep my knee from slipping down the kneeler forcing me to do a split when I am wearing tights. I use different kinds of muscles to hold my lower back straight so my butt doesn't jut out and hit the pew and I frequently turn my head to check and make sure my little ones aren't climbing over pews or destroying those ribbon bookmarks in the hymnals. But all of that effort makes me feel like my body is engaged in the prayer. Kneeling feels like the position I want to take when I am urgent and passionate and humble in my requests to God. And even though large displays of emotion tend to not be associated with more formal traditions, you will definitely see people crying as they kneel in prayer. Every Sunday. Sometimes it's me.
We pass the peace. I definitely use hand sanitizer afterwards during flu season but I love the chance to look people in the eye and acknowledge our presence to each other. Christianity is incarnational. We believe God took on flesh in Jesus Christ. So it seems natural that flesh and bones Christians would be part of our worship experience.
The hymns are pretty old and so is the organ. I am no organ expert. In fact, when my husband was listening to tons of organ pieces as part of his search for a new church organist I couldn't tell one song apart from another (insert gasp from people at my church). But I've never heard anything fill a space like an organ. All the way up to the top of the high arched ceilings and all the way down the aisle is filled with the deep and full sound of the instrument. And sometimes I sigh a bit when I see a hymn I don't know or one that people are struggling to sing has six verses. But when I can shut off the noises in my head and focus on the words I am singing they move me to my core- the depth of theology, the timeless and beautiful metaphors. Even if I only manage to fully pay attention to one verse, it makes me think and pulls my heart into my own (mediocre at best) singing.
There is also something to be said for singing together as a congregation. One year when I attended the annual gathering of conference clergy there was a band to lead the music and the words to newer Christian songs were on a screen while the hymnals were stored away somewhere. The band was really good and the music was good. I liked it. However, it was made for a band, certain lines were repeated for emphasis by the lead singer, there were unexpected slows for emotion and no music to know when to go up and down with my voice. Also, the instruments were too loud for me to hear anyone around me. I realized that I really missed singing with the other clergy I was in covenant with. I missed the feeling of hearing all our voices raised together to "O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing." I like joining my off pitch voice with fellow Christians around me, I especially like it when my friend who is a professional opera singer is sitting next to me and making my weak voice blended with her strong one sound great.
We say creeds and written prayers. We also always have time for impromptu, personal prayers to be said aloud or quietly during "the prayers of the people." Here's the thing ... I'm not comfortable with the amount of male pronouns used in the Nicene Creed or most hymns, and I am allowed to take my own liberties with those pronouns when I am in the pews (it's actually much clearer who we are referring to if God is God and Jesus is he), but these creeds are the most well thought out thing I will say all week (second only to the Lord's prayer). Do you know how much time, thought, prayer, wisdom, intelligence and even bloodshed went into these statements of faith? And I believe them. They make me feel grounded, they remind me of where my faith is in a world of shouting voices and disagreement. They also connect me to worshipers from the past 2,000 years.
The sermons are great. I know, I know, it's my husband usually preaching (or me which would make this paragraph incredibly annoying so let's exclude my sermons), but they are great. The lectionary dictates what is preached on, which I find to be an incredible discipline. You have to seek out what the spirit is saying and struggle and be challenged. You can't skip things that don't fit with what you feel like saying and you get to dig in and research and wrestle with a chunk of text, not just one line. The sermons are meant to provoke and challenge. It is not a list of rules or judgments. There is room for diversity (and believe me there is a lot of diversity of opinion in mainline churches). Your experience, brain and heart are needed to complete the sermon.
We read a lot of scripture. Sometimes a church will describe itself as "Bible based," I've never heard that used to describe an Episcopal Church but they read more scripture than any other denomination I have ever experienced. And it's not just a line from here and a line from there, it's chunks. Every Sunday you get: a Psalm, an Old Testament passage, an Epistle and a Gospel reading. We stand for the Gospel because these are the words of Jesus. We are encouraged to research, wrestle with, discuss and dig into the scripture. My favorite part of seminary was my Bible classes. If you dig into a passage it is amazing how it comes to life, opens up, moves you, challenges you and speaks to your soul.
The people are amazing. So, when I started my second appointment, my first one as a solo pastor there was some conflict. In fact, two months in I called my District Superintendent in tears saying I didn't know what to do (it only took two months to break my then #1 goal as a young woman pastor- do not cry!). There was some heavy conflict. One of the people I went head to head with became someone I treasure greatly. We kept at it, we didn't walk away and after another month or two we were big supporters of each other ... and we did some great and creative ministry together. People are difficult and sometimes newcomers are turned away by people believing each person is a reflection of the church's principles. But we are a collection of sinners asking for forgiveness, frail humans depending on grace. We are desperately trying to be better together with the Holy Spirit making that possible. The people I worship with here do amazing things that you would not know about to just see them in the pews. They start nonprofit organizations for at risk teens in the foster system, they volunteer with battered women, they nurse hospice patients to comfort, they feed the homeless, they work for justice and they live out the love and mercy of Jesus Christ no matter their occupation or situation. I am so inspired by these repentant humans I share a kneeler with.
There is so much more to say, but no one likes blog posts that are too long ... well maybe my mom would. Thanks for hanging in there with me for this subject that means so much to me. I suppose it is my thank you note to those intimidating buildings with the big wooden doors, the hymnals with the worn out binding and the musicians using their gifts to help people like me lift beautiful prayers to God. To the amazing people who have brought me to the faith. The pastor who let me ask any questions I wanted in confirmation class, the mentors, prayer teams and generous souls who died and left their hard earned money to ensure these structures can stand. The councils who wrote the creeds and preachers who stayed up wrestling with those tough passages. The acolytes and altar guilds, those who sewed paraments and filled the baptismal fonts. The Holy Spirit who keeps it all alive.
