Sarx

(Reposted from the Old Blog. 2 of 2, I thought them worth the repost)

An Orthodox Church - especially of the Eastern Rite - can be an alien world to people - especially American People used to three hymns some Bible and a sermon.

We’ve had a visitor recently. He was the cause of the letter I wrote in the post, First Time?. His presence the last couple of weeks has keyed me into a number of things we generally don’t do for new comers. I say this based on a limited experience: one parish in California, three in North Carolina (including a monastery), the JP Monastery in Resaca, one parish in Columbus, GA, and one parish in NYC. All of these locations are Eastern Rite. Others will have a far wider experience of the Church, in this country and out. Others may have a more narrow experience of a greatly different sort. Sharing of both kinds are welcomed.

Greeting

We don’t generally greet new comers in the same way that one might find in a Protestant church (although the parish in Columbus had a greeter at the door and the Cathedral has, sometimes, an “unofficial Greeter”). Sometimes there is someone at the Candle Stand, but that is alien: one doesn’t expect to need to go shopping to purchase a welcome. In fact a person totally new to church mightn’t expect a “candle stand” or a “book stand” to be present at all - let a lone be the place to go to “check in”. I have, once, coming to the parish in NYC, been cornered by a man in a cassock in order to find out if I was on the right side and thus able to take communion. The person at the door was most insistent and I confess I greatly enjoyed a game of cat and mouse. You’d be surprised how many ways you can dodge the question “Are you Orthodox?”. But that’s not greeting, by any stretch of the word. A friendly face, a “Hi, how are you, welcome to St Muggle’s Parish” would go a long way towards not scaring someone off.

Service books

In the few parishes I’ve listed above, the four had service books available. A fifth has service books for sale at the candle stand - but none for free. One of the four had, in fact, two service books in the pews, but see following. Only one of the places with service books did the service exactly as listed in the book. In all the others, the service added or subtracted bits and pieces of the text in unannounced areas - litanies here or there, several troparia, verses between verses. None of the places had bulletins or anything that might clarify the service (although one had a near-weekly bulletin which would, at least, give you a prayer list and the tone of the week assuming you knew what a tone was). Such a weekly publication should provide page numbers and information about seasonal variations, etc. It should at least make it clear that there are persons who - even in the midst of the service - can answer questions.

You have no clue how confusing that can be to a first-timer stranded in the middle of a strange place, surrounded by strange people. The idea that a service should be understandable and able to be followed seems alien to us. If you’re providing service books (not sure that’s a good idea, really - especially for first timers) they should at least be the same text as you’re using.

Service books may not be 100% good 100% of the time. A first comer can get lost in the service - even just by reading ahead. Getting distracted from the spirit of prayer needed to participate as ER or WR is not a good idea. Yet, especially if your parish is one where folks sing along, a printed libreto will help outsiders.

Warmth

This will vary from parish to parish and from person to person. Getting pinned to the wall by the cassocked greeter is not warmth. Having people smile and nod during the sermon is not warmth. You will need to find your own way here, dependant on the emotional strength of your community.

As written above, there should be persons available even in the middle of the service. This is especially true in ER parishes without pews. This is not so because of the strange qualities of ER services but rather because in a large, open space, where people move around and where Children act out or cavort, a new comer may be thus all the more at ease to ask whispered questions. We need to be ready for them - in fact ready to step in and make God’s Guest welcomed. Nor shoudl we get selfish about “my prayer time” or “my worship time with my family” because in our action of service to the Stranger we are serving Christ at table as certainly as did St Martha. Like deacons, our doing is our worship.

One has read an Orthodox priest who said, “When unbelievers and newcomers first enter a Christian place of worship, they should not necessarily ‘feel at home’ or be put at their ease.” Yet the Church fathers said we should even interrupt our prayers if our brother comes to the door. Benedict said to greet the Visitor as Christ, himself. The same priest also said, “A church that tries to be ’seeker sensitive’ in its worship… is borrowing ‘profane fire,’ whether in music, art, or atmosphere.” There is much wrong with those places that dumb everything down to a childish level or else have eliminated hard teachings just to make folks feel comfortable in their sin. But we are not following Christ if our attitude, demeanour and “atmosphere” is one of non-Christian inhospitality. To greet the visitor - unbelievers and newcomers alike - as if they were Christ Himself in our midst (for so they are!) will be strange enough: such an outpouring of Christian love will put them out of this world and into the next. The “atmosphere” will be that of heaven - not the other place.

Conclusion

Our New Visitor has been asking a lot of questions during the service: how to make the sign of the Cross, what page in the (not 100% right) service book are we on, how to venerate icons, in what way should candles be lit. His questions are easy to answer, but I’ve been stunned at how unrelated they are to Christianity. I’m left wondering what image we project in our little OCD (Orthodox Compulsory Devotion) ways. Do we really project (not just in our parish, but in our blogs and publications, radio shows and websites) that such things are so important as to cause us to “offend God” in their absence?

If so, what the heck are we doing wrong?

(See the Original Discussion on this post here)