Okay, so I have been attending an Orthodox Church fairly regularly for almost a year now and there is much that I love about it. Many of my lifelong paradigms - yeah, I hate that word too, but it's all I could think of - have been altered and many things I held tightly over the years have been released. I don't think there is anything I would change about the way they express their faith. But I have to admit there is one thing that I miss. For lack of a better term, it is contemporary worship. But not just any upbeat guitar and drums with pretty back up singers and a state of the art sound system. And not a bunch of 'Jesus is my boyfriend/girlfriend' type lyrics.
There are a few folks who read this who have had the opportunity to participate in a time of worship with Bob Thomas leading. Bob is one of those rare finds -- talented and humble with this amazing desire to just find and then rest in God's presence. If you would like to come along, he's glad to have you join him. I miss that. I miss the occasional unstructured time in a small group just rolling with wherever the worship takes you. And now that I think a little more about it, I don't think it's necessarily being in the Orthodox church that makes me miss it. I visited other churches when I first moved here that were closer to what I was accustomed to and even they left me feeling a little . . . . I don't know . . . unfulfilled. I know, I know, it is not the purpose of a Sunday service to fulfill me. I just have this little selfish desire inside to find some place or group that gathers maybe once a month or a quarter or something and just goes with it.
It's interesting to me how we all have different ways of being drawn into the presence of God or maybe just sensing that closeness that happens every so often. For some it can only be found in the classical styles of traditional or liturgical churches and this contemporary worship band stuff is just silliness while others feel quite the opposite. I guess there is really no right or wrong. I've tried to convince myself that the whole modernization of the worship was a bad idea, but then I remember a quiet Saturday night in Plano, TX singing "Resting" or "I Love Your Presence" or "I Receive" and I really miss it. I really, really do.
