Abby Spencer - Church Visit #1

Church Name: St. Joseph Orthodox Church
Church address: 412 Crescent St. Wheaton, IL 60187
Date Attended: September 20, 2015
Church Category: Significantly More Liturgical

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
I went to the Divine Liturgy service in England. The whole time was call and response. Most of what we said was sung or chanted. We were given books to follow along. Different priests would rotate when they were leading the liturgy, and they mostly stayed behind the iconostasis. It was extremely liturgical and there were a lot of times where we kneeled, sat and stood up. The priests and bishops wore these very elaborate robes and there was a lot of iconography inside. There was a lot of participation by the congregation. This is different from my regular church because church usually takes about an hour and a half, for everything but here the call and response took 1.5 hours and then the priest gave announcements and then there was a sermon, so everything took longer than I was used to. 

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
The most appealing part was the participation by the congregation. It was nice to all be reciting the same words and hymns and praying to God. Part of the call and response was praying for others and praying for those in the world that need help and I liked that. I thought it was interesting that the liturgy was mostly sung because I felt like it makes you pay more attention to the words because you have to pay attention to singing the right thing. I also liked how they did the sign of the cross whenever the Trinity was mentioned, which was frequent. At the beginning of the service a woman read a long piece of liturgy in the same singing/chanting voice and I thought that was very interesting and I wondered what the purpose was of that. And at the end the priest acknowledged birthdays and anniversaries and then people of the congregation raised their hand and added birthdays and anniversaries to the list.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
Many times they referenced Mary as being highly revered and I thought that was interesting and unexpected. I know Mary is very important in Catholic traditions, but I didn't realize it would be in the Orthodox church and that made me a little bit uncomfortable because of my very evangelical upbringing. At the end of the service, the priest stood by the door with a little cross and when people passed by him they kissed it which was very disorienting and confusing and I wasn't sure if we were supposed to or what it was even for, so that was challenging. At the end they also sung a prayer that talked about the Orthodox church in America or something and this was challenging to me because I didn't know what they were praying and to an outsider it seemed somewhat heretical and since I'm not Orthodox I didn't know whether I should say the words.

What aspects of Scripture or Theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
The Trinity was something they mentioned many many times throughout the service and everyone did the sign of the cross when it was mentioned. In my regular contexts the Trinity doesn't get as much attention and recognition. The recited the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which talks about the Trinity and its relationship to us and to each other. The service illuminated for me the participatory aspect of church that I don't usually see because we don't do long extended liturgies and worship is only a small part of the service. During the announcements, as I said they talked about things happening in people's lives and afterwards they had a fellowship hour with food and everything and this emphasized that the church was a community, even if it is a small one.