In the Midst
I first walked into St. John’s Episcopal Church in late August of 2022. I had just moved to town and was about to begin my seminary education at Yale Divinity School. Like most churches in the post-COVID era, there was far more pew space than parishioners. The congregation, without the leadership of a priest, led themselves in Morning Prayer, and the words of the prayer attributed to St. John Chrysostom echoed in my ears: “You have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them.”
My partner and I were obviously newcomers and notably younger than the typical church demographic. Predictably, we were greeted with a flurry of enthusiastic interest as we attempted to make our way out of the sanctuary and back to our car to debrief the visit.
Was this, in fact, our first time visiting? Indeed it was; we had just moved to town and were exploring churches. What brought us to Connecticut? I was starting graduate school. For what? Seminary, actually. Would I like a job? I’d have to get back to them. In the meantime, would I sign up for their newsletter? Sure!
I knew that I would not be able to serve this church as a typical seminarian without a full-time priest to supervise me, but I confessed on the short drive home anyway, “I love this church already. I want to serve God with them.”
Driven by the need to secure a field education internship, I left St. John’s behind to explore other parishes. But over the next two years, I would receive the occasional email newsletter, or the annual report would arrive dutifully in my mailbox, just when I was distracted enough to almost forget that I’d fallen for that parish down the street. Then, one day last semester, I found myself at an interest meeting for Reimagining Church, offering up St. John’s as a potential site for the program. As plans continued to fall into place over the summer, any doubts I might’ve had about the Spirit leading me to attend to this community were allayed.
By the night before St. John’s first working group meeting last weekend, I had a clear vision for how I would facilitate it. I’d been inspired by practicum meetings with my cohort of facilitators, and the readings assigned for those practicum meetings. I had met with each working group member individually and was cautiously optimistic that they would all get along, much like how one feels when inviting friends from different spheres of one’s life to a party. We’d finally negotiated schedules bearing the demands of work, school, and play rehearsals. I was driven by the Spirit, I was prepared, I was resolute.
Then, I woke up Sunday morning to a text from one of our members, who is married to another member, saying they were so sorry, but they couldn’t make that day’s meeting due to illness. I’d be lying if I said the wind wasn’t taken out of my sails a bit. Most of what I’d planned hinged on having the full group present for introductions, bonding, and norm-setting. Frantic, I texted one of the advising faculty, questioning whether I should reschedule or try to make do with the group at 50% attendance. She encouraged me to go ahead, and so I got myself to church, prayers ascending that I would figure out what to say and do so the other members would still feel that the meeting was worth their time.
At church, I heard one of the lessons appointed for that day by the Revised Common Lectionary, from the epistle of James. It concludes, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” I gave myself over to worship, resolving to contemplate what to do further during the pancake breakfast that would follow the service before our meeting.
I spent the pancake breakfast getting to know parishioners who are not in the working group. “How am I to reimagine church if I don’t know the church?” I thought, and found myself enlightened by listening to a family who had been in the parish for decades greeting a family who was exploring transferring their membership from another nearby congregation. Soon enough, the time to meet was upon us and I was still short on ideas. After a brief moment of prayer, I proceeded with the most basic of beginnings. “I don’t know how well the two of you know each other.”
“I know you’re in the choir,” one said.
“Yes! I heard you’re also musical?” the other replied.
The tension of how to start had been broken and my anxiety subsided as the conversation flowed easily into our shared passions for music and how that related to the church. When the momentum slowed, I reviewed that our primary task was one of discernment, or listening for the voice of God, and that in order to listen for God, we had to listen to one another–the members of the group and the broader community.
After some words about scheduling and structure, it was nearing lunchtime and felt natural to bring the meeting to a close. “This is just one idea, but I thought maybe we could close with prayer, like how we opened?” I suggested, detailing part of my original vision: cultivating a community within the group by sharing our petitions for the week with one another. They seemed less than enthused. “I like opening with prayer, but…I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like the thing to send us out to do the work? It feels like holding tight instead of letting go of one another,” one of the two explained.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a stack of hymnals on a nearby shelf. “What if we sang?” I ventured, feeling almost silly as the words tumbled out on impulse. They smiled patiently, like they’d be willing to indulge me. I got up and picked up three of the books, bringing them back to the table, confidence and delight building within me. I selected a simple and familiar hymn, and we began to sing.
Something mystical occurred as our three voices filled the room. I noticed how we were listening to one another, and then I recognized the light in the eyes of the two people I was sharing this moment with. “This is the sound of the Spirit,” I thought. It dawned on me that I was in the company of souls accustomed to listening for God’s voice, that we had all been created to seek it, and that in singing together, we were seeking after its resonances in one another.
The words of the prayer attributed to St. Chrysostom returned to me: “You have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them.”
Image | Michael Maasen on Unsplash