I found out about the evening service at Benton Street Baptist Church from their user-friendly website. I know they have a sizeable gathering on Sunday mornings, and I was curious to learn about their evening worship. When I planned on going to this service, I had not known that it would be a student and youth-lead service. I was pleasantly surprised.
This downtown church has its main entrance facing Benton Street, with entrances to the parking lot, also on Benton Street and on St George Street (a side street). When I arrived, it was via the St George Street parking lot, but I wanted to see what the main street entrance experience was like, so I went to the Benton Street parking lot entrance to enter the building. I approached the glass doors just as an elderly couple approached. They were regular attendees at this evening worship service, and they moved confidently towards the doors only to find them locked! Apparently this was unusual, and the gentleman proceeded with an insistent beating of fists upon the door, whilst I went around to the pedestrian main entrance on Benton Street to see if that was open.
Upon discovering it too was locked, I returned to the parking lot entrance where I stood beside the elderly couple while the gentleman continued to try to get the attention of people inside the inner set of doors. He was, within a few minutes, successful. The doors were unlocked and we were welcomed in. Three different, unfamiliar people greeted and welcomed me in the foyer area, asking if it was my first time at their church. It was not clear to me if this area also was a baptistry (no clearly present font) but it had a lot of information in it: a TV-monitor cycled information about the church’s mission leaders and their activities nationwide as well as internationally, and a pamphlet stand was full of various info guides.
There was clear signage in this area guiding us to exits, washrooms and childcare. People were greeting each other and talking in this space; it had a warm, inviting, community feeling to it. I had a few minutes here before I was ushered into the main sanctuary for worship, and handed a bulletin of sorts (attached) at the sanctuary entrance.
The usher introduced himself by name, welcomed me asking my name, shook my hand, and invited me to sit anywhere I would like. I selected an empty pew. The worship space was set up theatre style, with central and flanking pews. I sat in a central pew a few rows from the back of the sanctuary. Within a few minutes, a member came and sat beside me, introduced herself and inquired whether it was my first time there. I did get the impression that she had intentionally set out to welcome the stranger. She looked familiar and we soon discovered that I knew her from the recently closed Rockway Mennonite Second Hand Store from downtown Kitchener. My new friend informed me that tonight’s worship service would be lead by the church’s youth. I received many a friendly nod, welcoming smile and greeting from other members of the congregation. A lady a few pews forward turned and whispered to me “The youth are leading worship tonight. You’ll enjoy it! They do this once a month.” Her enthusiasm was infectious J and I felt embraced by the welcoming joy of her spirit.
I took a few minutes to go through the bulletin. It was more of an activity guide for the church than an order of worship. I took in the space, which was simple in its design and decoration. The central symbol behind the ambo / altar area seemed to be an artistic representation of a flame, or a large sheaf of wheat, in metals (bronze, silver, brass). The space we would usually consider altar (at the front of the church) was set up more like a stage, with a full set of worship band equipment and a grand piano. I did not get the impression it was used as an altar in the way Lutherans traditionally consecrate that forward segment of worship space. There were no signs of communion elements.
Flanking the “stage” were two beautiful quilts as wall hangings. On the left side the quilt read “Serve One Another in Love”, and on the right side the quilt read “In your heart set apart Christ as Lord”. I really liked the core messages, and the lack of competing art, signs and symbols in the space. As I centred myself for worship in this space, the two quilts reminded me of the commandments Jesus identifies as the two greatest commandments: to love God with all we have and are, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.
The youth called the worship to order, and the process of formal Gathering was done with a number of songs, for which we the gathering were lead by the youth worship band. The lyrics (without music) were projected onto two screens on the front walls of the worship space, and a strong lead singer in the youth worship band helped us make our way through the tunes. There were hymnals in the pews (and Bibles), but we were not guided to the hymn numbers. The songs were not familiar to me, and from the gusto of the congregational participation, I did not think the gathering was necessarily familiar with the tunes, but they were selections that were catchy enough, and the lyrics were very meaningful, Christo-centric, thanksgiving and mission oriented. I found it easy enough to follow the tunes.
Two songs in, we were lead in a gathering prayer by one of the students. More songs followed. In essence this was the formal Gathering portion of the worship service. The informal part was the welcome and conversation extended in the foyer area and in the pew before worship was called to order. The youth pastor then did a combination PowerPoint presentation-message segment. He used PowerPoint to share a summary of the activities of children, youth and students at this church. I was surprised at the numbers of non-church youth they were reaching in the community. One weekly gathering had received 93 community youth participants that week, which I think in our downtown context is phenomenal outreach to unchurched youth.[1] The message focus was on Micah 6:8, with a plea to the older generation in the congregation to mentor and support this pastor’s generation and those younger than him, to guide this group as young Christians.
There was no formal closing, sending or end-of-worship prayer, which made for an interesting close of worship: the pastor left the lectern, people started getting up. I asked the new friend beside me if worship was over, and she said it was. A few other people stopped on their way out to thank me for coming, and invite me back again. One or two people asked me more about myself and seemed in no rush to head out into the Sunday night.
The Sunday Assembly (pp 106-7) provides a list of questions for assessing the Gathering portion of a worship service. When I consider the questions it offers, I think this worship service provided quite clear leadership to the Gathering practice, although it did not include elements that are familiar from our Lutheran tradition (Greeting, Confession or Prayer of the Day). In this Sunday assembly, one option not available to me was anonymity, for the congregation was very warm, welcoming and curious (in a friendly way) about me. When I consider these non-Lutheran worship adventures so far, I think the Roman Catholic Mass best facilitates personally anonymous worship in a communal setting.
I often have thought that an evening service close to my home would help round out Sabbath for me. I think I might return to this 6.30 pm worship for such an evening feeding!
[1] I shared this information with Pastor Nancy Kelly at my home congregation on Monday morning after Breakfast Ministry; I found out St Mark’s is going to be trying some new initiatives to reach community youth, together with Calvary United, and I was encouraged to return to Benton Street Baptist Church to invite Pastor Jaye Rice to help and guide us as we seek to do, further north in Kitchener, what he is stewarding so effectively in the heart of our downtown! The Holy Spirit at work through these denominationally promiscuous worship assignments, a reminder to me that we are the body of Christ indeed, unbounded by denominational walls J
