worship – Page 3 – Salvaged Faith

It's a coaching problem…

Posted on January 21, 20152 Comments

I was recently talking with a colleague about the fear/frustration that church members think we, as the pastors and staff, are the ones who do ministry.

Obviously, since we are the ones getting the paycheck, we should be the ones out making new disciples and teaching and being prophetic and visiting the sick and all of those other things churches do.

In that scenario, it is the congregation’s job to sit back, complain if something isn’t happening (like growth), and financially support the work.

Our job, however, is not to do the work, but to call and equip the laity (the people) to share in the work.

Using a sports analogy, I guess you could say we are a lot more like coaches than players. We are paid to look at the gifts and talents of our players, to train them, to condition them, to challenge them to grow, but they are the ones who play the game.

We can stand on the sidelines and encourage. We can call timeout and give advice and lay out a new strategy (pastoral care). Coaches review game films and get the team ready for the opponent (bible study). We can hold practices where the players learn the essential elements of the game.Worship is such a time where we learn to pass the peace, confessing and forgiving, and hear a pep talk about how to play.

What I love about this analogy is that most coaches have a season of recruitment where they go out and build relationships with people and build a team. So, evangelism and community engagement are an important part of our job.

But then the church has to go out there and play. Out to their schools and homes and workplaces and golf courses and hospitals and homeless shelters.

As a sports fan in the Hawkeye State, there is a lot of armchair coaching that goes on in my house.

Some days are better than others.

During football season, we’d cry out, “put Sunshine in!”

Watching ISU miss free throws makes you want to pull out your hair.

I’m not even going to discuss the Hawkeye loss last night. I can’t even….

But at some point, you have to stop looking at the players, and you have to ask what is going on with the coaching.

The same can be asked of the church.

When we see a church declining or in financial trouble or stagnant, we have to ask what is happening with the coaching.

Part of the problem is that as pastors, we forget we are supposed to be coaches.

We get bogged down in meetings and administration and in the pressure to go out there and bring people into the church and don’t always make time for one-on-one coaching sessions.

We sometimes worry about how the music or sermon will be perceived, rather than how it will shape and form the congregation.

It seems to be easier to make the visits to the sick and home bound than to train up the laity to care for one another as an act of Christian love (and to train them to receive care from one another).

And sometimes, we simply assume the “team” is playing fine so we fail to change the line-up. Maybe that’s the hardest one. With good and faithful people serving in a particular ministry area, we are afraid to inject new leadership, or worry more about how someone will feel if they are benched… even if it is better for the mission and work of our church.

And then, in some churches, we find that we are coaches who don’t have a team in the church, but a booster club. We have people who think they are fans rather than the starting line. And the coaching mistake is that we let it happen or continue to happen.

Maybe its time to run some laps and do wind sprints and shoot a thousand free-throws.

Maybe what we need is a good hard season of practice.

Feedback and Preferences

Posted on January 7, 2015Leave a comment

I’ve been in my current congregation for about six months now and I know that we have some tinkering to do with worship. On the one hand, we have a solid traditional service that features our choir and the organ and liturgy and is right up my own personal alley and comfort zone. We also have a contemporary/blended service that has struggled to find a consistent identity musically, even if it follows a fairly contemporary order of worship.

The question that we are struggling with is what type of worship is God calling us to offer at Immanuel. I think lots of types of worships please God, but different worship experiences call different people to authentically be present before their God. So who are we? How do we worship most fully? And who new might be led to worship God here if we were more clear about the types of worship we offer? And in the midst of that, how do I/we set aside our preferences if God is inviting us to think about something different?

I find myself treading a very fine line, however, as I craft a worship survey between asking for authentic feedback and asking for people’s preferences. Worship is about God, after all, and not about us… yet we won’t often return to tables where we haven’t been fed spiritually. In the act of worship, we are formed as disciples of Jesus and so our own learning styles and needs do play in to how we worship. I don’t want to play on consumerist tendencies and just give people what they think they want, but to dig deep and invite people to think about how they personally worship God the most fully.

As I’ve read through surveys, questions like:

What part of the music in worship is most meaningful to you?
what characteristics of worship would you like to see more/less (formal, spontaneous, reverent, congregational participation, pageantry, innovation, laughter)
what kind of music enables you to pray most deeply?
What best describes how much you sing in worship? (I don’t, I hold back if I don’t know the words, I sing loudly if I know the song, etc)
How important are various aspects of worship (prayer, greeting, special music, message, etc)

are really speaking to me and I’m working to craft a survey that helps us all to think deeper about the big picture of what it means to worship.

Any ideas for other questions?

Pray for us!

Singing a song #NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 19, 20141 Comment

This fall, a month or so after choir started, I decided to start going with a friend of mine.

I love to sing.
I can’t say I’m good at it, but I love it.

There is something special about making music that taps into my spirituality. I’ll find myself singing as I debate a problem or wrestle with a solution. I sing as I pick out hymns. I work to connect the lyrics with the scriptures and message and use the tunes to set the emotional mood of the moment in worship. I sing when I’m happy and microwaving my lunch (“Hot Pockets”).

I wasn’t sure if I could make the time commitment. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the dual roles on Sunday mornings. I wasn’t sure if my voice would be too tired.

But let’s be honest… I’m singing my guts out on the hymns and songs anyways. I might as well stand with the choir for one more.

Tonight, I am exhausted and my vocal chords are tired, but I am so glad I joined the choir. Now I can’t imagine Wednesday without it.

P.S. pictures of people singing without mics look a lot like they are yelling!

How to plan a funeral #NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 10, 2014Leave a comment

Today’s prompt comes from BlogHer Blogging: What knowledge do you have that others don’t? Write a “how to” post about anything you’ve got skills for, small or large.

In the first month of ministry, I had three funerals in my community. Nothing about their lives were the same. A baby who had struggled from the beginning. A good and faithful servant entering his nineties. A beloved grandmother.

Armed with my pocket book of worship and a prayer, I managed my way through.

Over time in that community I did more funerals than I can count. One year it was nearly 25 different services. Along the journey, I developed a system of preparation for the service that might be helpful. My number one goal is always to weave the life story of the person who has died with the story of God. Using traditional liturgy and pieces I have cut and pasted from various sources, I hope it might be helpful for you also.

The Family Meeting

What made ____ who he/she was?
What will you miss the most?
Tell me about where they grew up.
How did they meet their spouse? Where did they make their home together?
Vocational questions: if homemaker – what kinds of things did she cook/sew, if farmer – what crops/animals, etc. Stories usually come out here.
Ask the funeral director about how they died… then ask follow-up questions with the family: What was it like seeing them in the hospital for so long? What were their later years like? How did they adjust to a loss of physical ability?
Ask about what is important to the family about the funeral itself: music, scriptures, those who speak
Be kind. Be firm. Be open.
- Most families haven’t been through this kind of planning before. They don’t know what they don’t know.
- They don’t know what is normal. If there are things you feel are inappropriate, it is okay to simply say so, but figure out what that element represented for them and try to incorporate it.
- Don’t be afraid to embrace the weird… sometimes it is the wonderful.

The Sermon

This is kind of the basic structure that I work in for most funerals… especially when I don’t know the person. If I do, I have more freedom to play around and adapt, but this structure helps me to use the above questions to make the meditation personal.

Today we come together to remember the life of ______________.. Each of you are here today, because you carry with you memories of a dear friend, a neighbor, or an aunt who loved to work with her hands and who loved her family and her friends.

Obituary information woven in with stories from the family about his life growing up, marriage, life with kids, his work, what she loved, etc. Don’t read the obituary… tell their story in four or five paragraphs. Include the little details the family shared

[Name] was born not far from here on June 11, 1927 to [Name] and [Name] . He served his country faithfully during World War II… [Name] remembered how the young men would all hop on the train together here to go off to training and to service. [Name] was actually still in training when the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred, and then was later stationed there.

In 1949, [Name] married [Name] here in and together they brought [Name] and [Name] into the world. [Name] worked for well over forty years with his father and brother as a part of the family business. And then he watched as [Name] and [Name] came into their lives… and then grandchildren… and eventually great-grandchildren.

Even running his own business however, [Name] an knew that work wasn’t everything. The family remembers fondly weekends hanging out with the neighbors and dancing to Lawrence Welk in the living room – simpler times. In almost every picture I got to see of [Name] last night at the visitation, he has that great smile on his face… you can see that he was enjoying his life… almost as if he had a secret that he was treasuring in his heart. [Name] also liked to take time to fish and boat and he liked to take the grandkids camping in the RV.

Connect something about their life story to scripture or a song – something that sums up who they were in a way that connects us with the divine.

Be honest about the reality of death and the promise of resurrection:

More recently, you as a family have been through some rough weeks. A month and a half ago, [Name] had a stroke that dramatically altered your lives. Unlike some illnesses that gradually overwhelm us – this was a sudden transformation.

Perhaps one of the hardest parts that we have to do in this life is accept that all of the things that we love and all of the people that love us eventually will pass on in this life. In the book of Isaiah we heard the words: All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades… but the word of our God will stand forever.

These mortal lives that we lead, they are not forever. [Name] knew this to be true. (something about their own experience with death – spouse, child, the loss of a physical or mental ability in her last days, etc.) And as some of you gathered around [Name] bedside in her last days and weeks, that was an ever present reality. We come from nothing but dust and to dust we shall return.

But in between, we have the opportunity not only to lead beautiful and wonderful lives, but we have the opportunity to clothe ourselves with a new life as well – a life that will endure beyond even the valley of the shadow of death – a life that will extend beyond the grave.

Jesus told his disciples as they were gathered together that in his Father’s house there is room for many – and that a place was being prepared for them and for us. As we remember all of those things that you loved about [Name] – we also celebrate that those are the very things that she is able to enjoy once again… that the life in these past years that gradually slipped away from her is now restored – that she is in the presence of our God and that she loves you all dearly.

Connect God’s story back to their memories and name very specific things the family has named:

That doesn’t mean that we won’t be sad. Sometimes when someone has (lived for so long, or suffered for so long or done so much in their life) – we think that we should simply be grateful for how long we did get to share our love with them, grateful that (we got to experience…. Or that their suffering is over… or that we had so much time together) But as we celebrate her life, we remember all of those things that you will miss. You will miss… [be specific! – the smell of cookies baking in her kitchen…. the way he yelled at the television every the Hawkeyes lost… etc. ]

And we should mourn. Because it means that we remember and that we cherish what we have lost. But also know that in your time of mourning – we are promised comfort. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. The same shepherd who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death walks beside each of you today and as you leave this place and walks with you forever more. Amen, and Amen.

MY BIGGEST ADVICE –Figure out what you want to say in general at funerals – what is the message of comfort and hope, life and resurrection that you want to speak. It is okay for that to be said at every single funeral that you do. The last third of the above message is what I say most of the time… put the gospel in your own words and continue to share that good news. The rest is simply weaving in their story with God’s story.

The Service

Entrance

Here is where customs will dictate.

At my funeral home, the casket remains at the back and when I walk to the front, the director closes the casket and then the music stops and I begin.
At the church, the casket is wheeled to the front, I follow and make my way to the pulpit, and the family follows me… the whole church stands as the family enters and then sits only after the words of grace/greeting
For a graveside (more later) we all gather, the casket is closed and I start when everyone is present.

Words of Grace

Greeting

Invocation

Psalm 23

Song –

Common Scripture Lessons

Ecclesiastes 3: (1-8) 9-15 – use OFTEN for farmers, blue collar folks who enjoyed the work of their hands and were simple people.
Gospel Reading – John 14:1-3
I also let scriptures from the family direct the mood here – we’ve used the beatitudes, Christmas scriptures, favorite verses ( ask why!) , Revelation 21, etc.

Message (not long… 5-10 minutes)

Song –

Litany of Thanksgiving (adapted from Book of Worship and from materials at West End UMC, Nashville)

Gracious and loving God, we thank you for all with which you have blessed us even to this day: for the gift of joy in days of health and strength and for the gifts of your abiding presence and promise in the days of pain and grief. It is right and good in this our time of need to offer thanks for [Name]’s life among us. We take comfort in the memories of her presence and the wonderful ways in which she blessed our lives.

(If a family wants to have a time of sharing… this is where I do it – in the context of giving thanks for that persons life and celebrating memories… if no one stands, then I have these ready to go and prepared… if they aren’t doing sharing, we go through these anyways as a part of the litany/prayer)

We give you thanks and remember her faithfulness as a wife to [Name] for over 30 years.

We give you thanks and celebrate her love of her children, [Name], [Name] and [Name]and her grandchildren and grandchildren.

We give you thanks for the way she created her own family in the staff and residents at ____.

And we give you thanks for the work of her hands – her vocation as a homemaker and her love of crafts.

And now that [Name]’s race is complete and her struggle is over, we commend your servant [Name] into your loving arms, O merciful God. Receive her into the blessed rest of everlasting peace and into the glorious company of your saints. Fill us with your peace and abiding comfort, and keep us true in the love with which we hold one another. Above all else we thank you for Jesus, who died our death and rose for our sake, and who lives and prays for us. And as he taught us, so now we pray.

The Lord’s Prayer

Benediction

Song (especially if they want three – here is a good place to add the last one)

Graveside Only Service

(entire service is same as memorial service through the message… with the exception of probably NOT having music… this is where the committal becomes a part of the service, instead of separate)

Litany of Thanksgiving & Committal

We give you thanks and remember her faithfulness as a wife to [Name]’ for over 30 years.

We give you thanks and celebrate her love of her children, [Name]s and her grandchildren and grandchildren.

We give you thanks for the way she created her own family in the staff and residents at _____.

And we give you thanks for the work of her hands – her vocation as a homemaker and her love of crafts.

And now that [Name]’s race is complete and her struggle is over, into your hands we commend your song/daughter _____, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life the Jesus Christ our Lord.

This body we commit to the ground… earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Now as we offer _____ back into your arms, receive him/her into the blessed rest of everlasting peace and into the glorious company of your saints. Comfort us, O God, in our lonliness, strengthen us in our weakness, and give us the courage to face the future unafraid. Fill us with your peace and abiding comfort, and keep us true in the love with which we hold one another. Above all else, we thank you for Jesus, who died our death and rose for our sake, and who lives and prays for us. And as he taught us, so now we pray…

The Lord’s Prayer

Benediction

I hope this is helpful for any beginning pastors out there…. or any of us more seasoned pastors who are looking for something to get them out of a rut.

Feasting with the saints #NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 2, 20141 Comment

Today, I served communion to a man with tears in his eyes. His father, though no longer with us, was present on this day. The Spirit was present. You could feel it in the space.

All Saints is one of those high holy days where the pomp and liturgy and tradition matters. Being a newbie in this congregation, I must admit I was nervous and anxious about doing justice to the way this particular community remembered their dead. I did not know most of those we named. I couldn’t tell you their story. So I told one of my own.

Though our experiences of loss are vastly different, there are common threads and moments. The experience of a long struggle. Whispers at the bedside. Caring for others instead of ourselves. The unexpected moments when we break down.

Today, I shared my experience surrounding my grandfather’s death. My Deda. We cracked walnuts together. We baked apple pies. He said few words, but knew how to make you smile. He was always faithfully hoeing weeds in the garden or field. A honey butter sandwich was the best thing in the world. I remember his stories about peeling potatoes in Korea. How he always said “spank you” instead of “thank you” with a twinkle in his eye. And how he could get all kinds of worked up if the right topic came along.

When I think about him, I realize in part how little we have in common. He was a person of few words. He made do on next to nothing. He worked with his hands and back almost every day of his life. Yet it is precisely because we are so different that I can appreciate all he had to teach me. Thinking of him makes me take a deep breath and slow down and listen more. It makes me pause to think of all that could be and should be. I wonder how life would be different if he had been with us longer. I want to eat a fried egg on a single slice of bread at breakfast with him once again. I wonder what he would have thought of his granddaughter the pastor.

When we celebrate All Saints, we remember that those who are gone are not gone forever. They continue to be with us… guiding us, encouraging us. I didn’t know much of Deda’s life of faith or relationship with God, but every time I plant something or pull a weed, he is with me. And today when we broke bread at communion and I thought of the farmers who had harvested the grain, I sensed his presence.

It is strange and wonderful how our lives and souls entwine. And I thank God for the promise and hope of the resurrection and the reminder that our differences dead are never truly gone.

Church Whiplash

Posted on October 27, 2013Leave a comment

In the past six weeks, I have preached at some RADICALLY different types of churches.

My latest traveling marathon began with the invitation to be the official Imagine No Malaria spokesperson at a 5k event in Lakewood, Ohio. As part of the festivities, I preached at the Cove and Lakewood United Methodist Churches.

Cove and Lakewood are beginning a new mutual partnership. Lakewood essentially hired a third pastor, a deacon, who serves part time at Lakewood and part time as the pastor at Cove. In reality, all three pastors preach and rotate between the two congregations. They are building new relationships, drawing upon gifts to enhance one another, and I really hope it will be successful for all involved!

Worship at Cove UMC was in a beautiful sanctuary with dark wood and nautical themes and a huge anchor at the front of the sanctuary. The choir was rowdy and fun and provided most of the energy for the service. The crowd was sparse and folks seemed to tumble in at various times. The church itself is shared between the United Methodists and the U.C.C. folks and so it was easy to see the overlap in the morning activities. Before the service was over, I was rushed out the door to make it to Lakewood to preach at their traditional service.

Lakewood UMC’s traditional service is in a strange L shaped sanctuary. The choir and pulpit sit at the corner of the L and it makes for a really interesting preaching venue. They are in the process of renovating so the space is less awkward and they can add some technology like screens and powerpoint and better sound. I arrived most of the way through the service, just in time to get to the altar area and begin preaching. Large choir, beautiful stained glass, very traditional style of worship… with the exception of that weird layout!

Then I preached at their contemporary service in the fellowship hall. A band played along the right side of the worship space with screens at the front. It was strange to have a very traditional altar and decorations in between high tech televisions, but it worked. That service was very casual, seated around round tables, and it was nice to be able to look every person in the eye as I preached and shared.

When I got back from Ohio, I had a weekend off and then I preached another three service – this time at a three point charge in South Central Iowa.

Decatur City is a small little church and most folks don’t actually live in that community anymore. The ten of us gathered for worship not in their sanctuary, but in the kitchen/fellowship space – with the altar as the kitchen counter. The group was really close-knit and you could tell they looked out for one another. The music was played on an old piano and they sang their hearts out. It was informal and holy and the type of service where if someone interrupted with a question, you just went with it.

Davis City felt very different in comparison. While it was also a tiny little church, the sanctuary they worshiped in was for a much larger congregation. The stained glass, the dark wood, felt very heavy in that space because there were so few of them. In reality, no fewer than the previous church, but they all sat spread out at the back of the church. Music came from the Hymnal on CD which added a different element to the service. My favorite thing about worshiping with this group was the little girl who bounced here and there and everywhere. You could tell they all loved her very much and as she took the offering, she clicked this little thing around her neck as a “thank-you.”

The third church in this cluster was Lamoni. The building was newer (maybe mid 70’s), lighter, and fuller. Young people were everywhere. The music was blended, there was a screen and powerpoint, and the tiny sanctuary was packed with folks who were excited to be there and excited about the possibilities in their community.

The next weekend, I also preached at three services, but this time in one congregation – Grace in Des Moines. I started with their Saturday night service and made an assumption it would include a praise band and contemporary music and was pleasantly surprised to find a small chapel area, a good crowd, and jazz stylings on the piano with Taize selections from The Faith We Sing. No screens, but good coffee and treats afterwards. I could pass around a picture to illustrate my sermon and have great impact with the group.

The early morning service on Sunday was in the same space – a fellowship area they are trying to convert into a chapel of sorts. It was a traditional service, stripped bare, with a good community feeling. This was the early bunch and afterwards everyone rushed off to Sunday School so there wasn’t a lot of deep community in that worship service that I could sense… you could tell it might be worship for the folks who want the traditional worship from Grace but might have things to do that day.

The main worship service was very different. Large sanctuary, three choirs, over three hundred in worship with long deep aisles and the balcony above. No screens… just the music and the words. Lots of folks young and old. Very traditional and formal type of service. Preaching from the pulpit, I felt far away from the people, but also had the sense that all eyes were on me. But worship extended beyond that space, it wasn’t necessarily the crowning jewel in that church, even though it was a highlight. You could tell as they left the space, they went to gather, drink coffee, join in mission opportunities, go to lunch together, etc.

The next weekend, I was at another church for three services, but not to preach this time. At Altoona UMC, they were in the midst of a series and so I shared for about five minutes as part of the sermon at each service. Their traditional service was so different from what I think of as “traditional.” There was a choir, the songs were all standards from the Hymnal, but the format of the service itself was very contemporary – front loaded with music with a long preaching/teaching time at the end. Lighting changed the mood between prayers and message and songs. Blues and reds lit up the stage and the audience was dimmed for the teaching portion. The choir left after their music was finished and then a chair and a table was set in the middle for Pastor John’s message. Technology is a huge part of how this church worships and it added to every single detail in a way that was seamless.

The second two services were similiar to one another. Traditional, praise band, in many ways the exact same format as the first service, but with very different music. The church is growing fast and every service had a sense of life and energy to it. Pastor John did a great job of making some kind of personal reference with people in every service, calling someone out and showing how the point in the message impacted them personally. It was a nice touch, and you can tell people know one another, are open about where they struggle and what they celebrate.

In the next few weeks, I have to fill out my Pastoral Profile form and indicate what type of community I feel called to serve in the next year. Come July, I will be in a new appointment, because my work as the Imagine No Malaria Coordinator will be finished. I thought knowing the diversity of what is out there might help me to check some boxes and not others, but to be honest, all of this moving between churches has given me whiplash. I think if I had to think about the places where I felt the most grounded and connected, it was those services/congregations where there was a sense of community and support. Not only for one another, but for what was happening in the world, too. I want to serve in a place where there is a willingness to think connectionally – both with other churches and with the wider world. I want to serve in a place where they come to be fed so they can feed others. And I realized in my whirwind preaching tour that it is not the size or location of a church or even they style of worship that determines whether or not those things happen.

truth and repentance #gc2012

Posted on April 28, 2012Leave a comment

Last night, our General Conference participated in an act of repentance toward healing relationships with Indigenous Peoples. I’m not entirely sure what I expected from the service of worship, but it was more somber and prophetic than I had imagined. There was less imagery and pageantry and more thoughtfulness and truth-telling. And the language used was much more radical than I had expected.

As people of this world, we have perpetuated crimes against our brothers and sisters. We have taken land, forced our perspectives, and destroyed cultures. We have not only committed sins of omission for not helping, but we have actively resisted the peace process and we have have gone into places as a violent force. We heard stories about the role of Methodists in slaughter in the Phillippines, in the Sand Creek Massacre, in the Trail of Tears, in Africa, in Norway, in places all across this globe where we have done damage in the name of Jesus Christ for our own personal and corporate benefit.

It was hard to hear. It was hard to relive. It was hard to dream that reconciliation is ever even possible, that damage could be reversed, that wounds could be healed.

And it was a powerful witness by our leadership that this was not a time OF reconciliation. This is merely the first step. We have to know what we have done and we have to feel pain about it. That pain leads us to repentance. That pain leads us to weep at what we have done.

In the service of worship, there were not celebrations or even folks there who we could apologize to. Rev. Tinker made it very clear that others are not at the table because we cannot just say we are sorry and move on. We are not at a point of reconciliation yet… but he is walking with us because he knows how difficult it is to repent and he is walking beside us in the process. That point was driven home again and again and it was important to hear.

Our call now is to be in repentance. To be continually repentant. To take a step forward every day. To work for harmony and balance in all that we do.

One step forward.

May we not take two steps back…

invocation of the spirit #gc2012

Posted on April 24, 20121 Comment

One of the most amazing moments in worship this afternoon was to see bishops of our church gathered around the communion table in the center of the people and to hear them invoke the power of the holy spirit.

I recite those words every week at our communion service.

I say them once a month in Sunday worship and at the nursing home.

They are deeply familiar to me.

And yet, with the arms of all of our body outstretched, the bishops prayed in their native tongues. The voices overlapped and competed with one another. Hard consonants mingled with softer vowels. It was a beautiful chorus of language and culture and background and perspective… it was humanity – reaching up towards the heavens and asking God to come down and make her presence known among us.

The beautiful cacophony of it made my heart sing and tears stream down my face.

We continued to experience this unity in the midst of our diversity when the voices of all 4700 participants in worship joined together to pray the Lord’s Prayer in their first languages. The familiar comfort and cadence of the American way of reciting the prayer was a subtle and not over powering backdrop to the many other voices… I was surprised that I could hear so many and that my own native tongue was not drowning out others.

This is the church. This is the body of Christ.