We are currently attending VBS. Mornings are for the kids to study Jesus' prayers during Holy Week and to work on their catechism memory-work. Evenings are for everybody to attend what Pastor is calling a "retreat on prayer." Paul had an interesting comment on what his mother got him into. Andrew didn't particularly want to go along the first night, but was quite happy to return the second night.
One of the points Pastor made was that we don't "read" the psalms or "say" the psalms, we PRAY them. He mentioned that people have a sense that they shouldn't come into church or leave to go potty or whatever during the prayers. When everyone has their heads bowed and their hands folded and Pastor is praying, even pagans know to be respectful of that and be still. But he said people are perfectly willing to come and go (or whisper to the neighbor) during the psalms. But we are praying the psalms and should have that same sense of respect for those prayers as we do when Pastor is praying the collect or the general prayer.
This reminded me of some friends who were expressing some dissatisfaction with back-to-back hymns during communion distribution. They said they like some quiet time during communion so that they can pray and meditate. But that's what the hymns ARE! They are prayers. They guide our meditation. If we learn to think of the hymns as our prayers, then they are not an "interruption" to our prayers during communion, but add to our prayer.
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Susan,
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to understand that singing hymns was meditation or prayer. For a long time I would enjoy singing the tune, but zone on the text. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that the text of the hymn became a vital element in my devotional life.
When we joined our current congregation about 3 years ago, there wasn't much hymn singing going on during communion and that bothered me. At first I thought that it was because it different than what I had known before but then I realized that I was paying more attention to who was in church, were their kids behaving, what were they wearing, etc. I need the hymns during communion to keep me focused. We now sing hymns throught the entire distribution and I think that has been good for the congregation.
Melanie