Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church

Hello Friends,

Earlier I published a post about the first church Julia and I visited on Pentecost Sunday.  when the service at Cokesbury United Methodist concluded, we hurried to our car and made our way down the street a few miles to Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church.  Unfortunately we were a few minutes late.  After a quick trip to the bathroom (for me, Julia was fine) we quietly entered into the sanctuary to find ourselves in a worship service with preschoolers.  We were at the wrong end of the building.  By the time that we found our way to the main sanctuary we were about 15 minutes late.  It was totally our fault, but the first lesson that I came away with was that it is important to have trained hosts, or greeters, or welcome team, or whatever you want to call it and that they need to be on site and ready to help well into the service.  To be honest with you, I know we have a great team of greeters, but I don’t know how long they stay at their post or if they greet everyone and offer help to everyone.  I know that I am greeted most mornings by Dorothy Hanle and offered candy.  I can make some assumptions, but it is definitely something that I want to follow up with.  Last Sunday at North Point Community Church I was overwhelmed by the greeters.  This morning, while people were cordial, the greeting process at both of the churches I visited was lacking.  I would like for our church to be more like North Point.

Well, when we finally got in, we had missed a chunk of the music.  The worship was a blended style with some nice choruses (some of which I would like to use in the Fall) and great hymns of the faith.  I know that Cedar Springs has a choir, but they were not in the loft this morning (unless they left after the first 10 minutes).  The music was accompanied by a mix of electric guitar, bass, drums, violin, harp and organ.  It was very nice.  Again, I will be using a few of the songs that I learned this morning!

I quickly looked over the bulletin for what we had missed.  The first two things printed in the bulletin were a preparatory reading by Dallas Willard and a preparatory prayer of confession.  These were to be done as people prepared their hearts for worship.  I like this idea, especially for our Classic worship.

A side note.  The bulletin from NorthPoint had a lot of announcements about moving people from the large group to small groups, but no “order of worship” and a few notes for the sermon.  The bulletin at Cokesbury had an order of worship and announcements.  The bulletin at Cedar Springs had only worship service order, with a lot of texts printed, but it took 5 panels of an 11X17 trifold bulletin.  Just interesting the differences in style.

Back to the morning.  The opening of the service seems to be a nice flow back and forth from song to reading to song to creed to song to prayer.  I am realtively sure this was all led by the worship leader.  Again, I like the use of the variety of instruments and the flow of this music.  As with Cokesbury, I am left thinking that I need to work at sing more instruments for different elements of the worship service (especially during our Classic Service).

Something that I have seen done before and that John and I have dialogued about numerous times are the announcements.  At Cedar Springs the announcements are done in the middle of the service right before the scripture reading and sermon.  I like freeing up the end of the service to end worship more profoundly.  However, the flow of the service seems interrupted in the middle with announcements.  In contrast NorthPoint church uses a video annoucnement called the Ten B4 that shows 10 minutes before the service.  Interesting.

The sermon was good and was from Acts 2 focusing on the 9 shapshots from Pentecost Day.  The one that struck me was the disciples devoting themselves to the Breaking of Bread.  The pastor emphasized are we longing to be with God’s people, sharing with one another in life together.

We concluded the service with communion.  It went well, but for a time I was uncomfortable because I did not know how they were going to do it.  For the second time in the morning I was struck by how a visitor knows what to do.  I found myself asking the question what do we do at FBC that we take for granted that someone will know how to do it.  I in no way want to water down the gospel or worship, but how can we make it easily accessible to newcomers.  Again, it is a definite balance.

It was good getting to worship from the pew and experience worship in some different environments.  I am going to work hard throughout the summer to enter into worship and not just evaluate.  I want it to be a heart experience and not just an intellectual endeavor.

Take care friends.  May the world see evidence of the Holy Spirit by the miraculous work of God in our midst, by our generosity and by our growth.

In the Power of the Spirit

Cameron