Preparing Our Hearts for Worship

We’ve been having Zoom church for four months now: enough time that I imagine most of us have settled into some rhythms for this new form of worship even as we eagerly anticipate worshiping together in person. I find, though, that the ease and familiarity of worshiping in my own home has also made it a little more difficult to prepare for worship, to pull myself away from one last household chore or transition my girls from games and books to silence and coloring sheets.

So I reached out to some of the friends of the Savior to ask how they are preparing their hearts and minds for worship on Saturday nights. Their practices are simple, but I hope one or more of them may prove helpful as you and your family take the time to enter into worship in this new, strange form.

• Make a sacred space: perhaps you have a special room where you can watch the service, or you can rearrange some chairs to mark a change from other activities. Many people light a candle (I’m a fan of flameless LED candles) and place their reserved sacrament in a special spot. Even small changes signal that we’re entering into a time of worship.

• Prepare physically: many people mentioned beginning to prepare for the service about 15 minutes in advance by doing things like letting the dogs out, setting up dinner and coloring for younger children, making sure that technology is functioning properly. If you often find yourself rushing, as I do, to log into Zoom and print coloring pages at 4:58, beginning to set up earlier will allow more time to transition into worship.

• Listen to the prelude: each week, one of Savior’s talented musicians begins playing a prelude a few minutes before 5 pm. This provides a great opportunity to sit quietly, take a few deep breaths, and still your heart. 

Creating space before the service begins — physical space and mental space — is the common thread through these practices. As we all have experienced, some weeks this is far easier than others. But as we continue worshiping online, the practice of creating space can help us fully enter into worship even from our living rooms.

Pastor Sarah Lindsay
Coordinator of Family Ministries

Welcome Jean Ann Parker, Bookkeeper

Early this month, Savior welcomed Jean Ann Parker as the new Bookkeeper. Get to know her a little better in the interview below!

Jean Ann and Steve Parker

What is your role at Church of the Savior?

I am the Bookkeeper. I will be assisting Janis Hultgren.

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

Until I was 1 year old my family lived in Winfield and then we moved to Wheaton and I was there until I married. After our wedding, my husband, Steve and I moved from Wheaton to Winfield and into the same house I lived in for the first year of my life…it was my grandparent’s home and they, at that point, were in long term care facilities. Five years later we moved back to Wheaton, which is where we raised our son, Dylan. At the end of 2014 we moved to St. Charles and love it!

What do you do when you’re not working for Savior?

I like anything to do with fiber – sewing, knitting and weaving. About a year ago I bought a weaving loom – a rigid heddle loom. I love taking classes to learn all the ins and outs of the craft. I belong to a weaving guild. I also enjoy having family and friends over to our home – I like to entertain. 

What is a piece of interesting trivia about you?

Ringo Starr and I are 4th cousins – we have a great, great, great grandma in common. No, I have never met him (I would love to!) but I have seen him in concert at Ravinia. 

Part V: "Ask Bishop Todd"

Interview Series with Bishop Todd Hunter
(Led by Fr. Kevin Miller)

PART 5 OF 5:

Q: The COVID-19 virus has changed daily life in America (and much of the globe) more than anything in our lifetimes. For a church like ours, what are the dangers of these changes; and what are the opportunities?

Bishop Todd Hunter:

COVID-19 is clearly an unpleasant menace to all of us. The world will be changed in predictable and unpredictable ways by this pandemic. Every human crisis brings both risk/threats and positive opportunities for the Gospel. As this pandemic, economic and social-psychological catastrophe unfolds, and perhaps becomes even more pervasive and broader in its impact, we are all going to wonder, in ever deeper ways: “What does this mean?” “How should the church respond?”

In trying to discern opportunities, I would begin with trying to assess needs that are close to you in the form of named people and named situations—not abstract situations. Beginning in this way may take you to broader, systemic needs, which is fine. Having named some people, assess your gifts, abilities and capacities in relationship to those needs. Jumping into the opportunities for ministry according to your gifts and station in life will give you special, meaningful memories to look back on, and not just the ugliness of this pandemic.  

The dangers in this setting, I think, are spiritual and relational.

Spiritual in that it is easy, and normal, to begin to question God. To wonder about suffering. To doubt the goodness of God—maybe even his existence. I’ll never forget the first time I heard the thought from Tom Wright: “How is any Jew supposed to believe in God after the Holocaust?” These huge human events have that sort of effect. The antidote? Saturate, marinate your heart, soul, mind, emotions and will in thoughts about the greatness, goodness, wisdom and completely competent love of God.

Relational, in that a form of xenophobia is growing in the world. Hating China or hating America. Hating Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians. Despising one of the cable news or talk radio outlets. Scorning those who wear masks or those who don’t. This dehumanizing of the other is seeping dangerously into our culture, and in the long-term is a greater threat to us than a virus. 

There are many things we don’t know about this pandemic: How long will it last? Will it come back? How vast will the economic ruin be? Those unknowns are enough to make anyone a nervous-Nellie or anxious-Andy. But thankfully there are also some things we know that can walk us through this current minefield:

The Lord is your shepherd. Being in the care of Another means you do not have to live under the tyranny of anxiety.

You are always safe in the kingdom of God. Everything else seems at risk, up for grabs. But God, his rule and reign, are never in doubt. Place your life in God’s kingdom by trusting and following Jesus. 

You have the peace of Christ: as Jesus said…

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14.27)

I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world. (John 16.33, MSG)

Photo Credit: c4so.org

Part IV: "Ask Bishop Todd"

Interview Series with Bishop Todd Hunter
(Led by Fr. Kevin Miller)

PART 4 OF 5:

Q: Unlike many dioceses, C4SO does not ask for a 10-percent contribution from a parish like Savior. Instead, you ask for 5% for the diocese, and 5% for local mission (primarily church planting). How well is this working? Does the diocese have enough money to operate well? What are churches doing with their local-mission funds?

Bishop Todd Hunter:

There is a truism associated with elections: “all politics are local.” If that is true about politics, it is even more true about ministry. Missiologists call this the principle of contextualization. Contextualization is simply a reminder that all ministry is situated, and a specific situation and person is the starting point for ministry. As helpful as missiologists have been to me over the decades, my main imagination for this comes from Jesus. In the Gospels, there are more than a dozen personal conversations Jesus has with individuals or groups. In each case he starts where people are, with their present understanding or misunderstanding, as the case may be. We could say Jesus is starting with the context of their mind, their social setting and their religious presuppositions. Having discerned that context, Jesus then begins to talk, to minister.  

That worldview is what undergirds my philosophy of ministry regarding local, contextual control of money spent on mission. C4SO has churches in scores of contexts in America. I am not expert on any of them. I don’t love them in the passionate way a specifically-called church planter or rector does. I have no business, just because I am the bishop, to sit in an episcopal ivory tower and tell leaders what to do. Regarding mission and ministry, I am not looking for conformity or compliance, I am looking for intelligent, contextualized, Spirit-led discernment that leads to good fruit.  As Roland Allen has written: There is a summons to everyone who will hear to submit inherited patterns of Church life to the searching scrutiny of the Spirit. We need to give pre-eminence to the Holy Spirit in all the work of the Church. This in no way lessens the importance of ordered life in the church; this is taken for granted; what we need to do is not neglect the direction of the Spirit within our ordered structure.

The 5/5 policy is meant to invest in the local work that emerges from that thinking. Up till now, I have not kept track of which churches actually spend 5% of their budget on local mission. But given human nature, I am sure some do not do so. Others are saving money to plant a church or start some other new ministry. That, of course, is fine. C4SO has always be able to meet its budget in the 5/5 model. Until the pandemic hit, we have never had a financial problem. Like all our churches, we are adjusting our budget for 2020 (and maybe 2021?), but right now our finances are “OK” given the magnitude of the challenge.

Photo Credit: c4so.org

Part III: "Ask Bishop Todd"

Interview Series with Bishop Todd Hunter
(Led by Fr. Kevin Miller)

PART 3 OF 5:

Q: You’ve said that our diocese (C4SO) is “a movement rather than an institution.” What do you mean by that?

Bishop Todd Hunter:

Movements and institutions have very different impulses and hoped-for outcomes. Over time, institutions become disconnected from the vision and values that gave them birth. At that point all that is left is to preserve the institution itself. In modern life this can happen very fast—in some cases, it takes only a decade, certainly not generations, as was the case before information and humans moved as fast as we now do.

Movements, on the other hand, are inspired by passionate, childlike faith. If institutions are risk-averse (we don’t do that; we’ve never done it that way before; we don’t have the money; etc), movements celebrate risk and change for the sake of following the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Movements tend to be focused on the present and on preparing for the future. Institutions tend to focus on defining and defending the past. Movements can be quick when needed; institutions move slowly. Movements have a laser focus on vision and a sharp awareness of being called into being for a clear purpose—a cause that animates them. Institutions suffer from mission-drift.

Movements have an imagination soaked in the narrative of Scripture and the purpose of God for humanity that emerges from that story. In order to live into that story, movements, trusting the Spirit and (typically) young, creative leadership, readily adapt to their times and places and the crying needs of their mission field. Institutions are usually too self-protective to engage in such things. Movements tend to inspire and deploy lay leadership. Institutions are often guilty of a clericalism that stifles the gifts of lay people. 

My goal in all this “movement talk” is simply to plant and cultivate church communities which are embassies of the kingdom of God and which develop followers of Jesus who are Spirit-enabled ambassadors of the kingdom sent into the world for the sake of others. Respecting Anglican norms, I intend to create in C4SO an overall corporate culture, and the corresponding practices, that make kingdom, Spirit, formation, and mission ultimate. Religious institutionalism is a far second place for me. 

I want to establish beachheads of Jesus’ person, word, and power in the midst of a grim and often hostile humanity. I want to create a family of churches who evermore perfectly live into God’s intention for the church by increasingly being a community of clergy and churches who find their core meaning as ambassadors and embassies or outposts of the rule and reign of God. I want to foment the journey inward and the journey outward (to quote Elizabeth O’Connor); the come-ness of followership and transformation and the sent-ness of mission.

Photo Credit: c4so.org