Nathan Baer - Church Visit #1

Church name: Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church

Address: 4636 Fall Creek Rd Crawfordsville, IN 47933

Date attended: October 15, 2016

Category: Orthodox

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

Holy Transfiguration was completely different than my normal Sunday worship. My home church has a rock band, we don’t do call and response prayers, and it is uncommon to dress up much at all. Only parts of the scripture readings were in English, whereas most of what was being chanted repeatedly was not, and I frequently didn’t know what was going on. It was also incredibly scripted: there seemed to be nothing that happened that wasn’t planned. This is somewhat normal in my worship experience, in the sense that there is a plan to worship, but it seemed more that every word had its place and was carefully thought out. Also, I found it fascinating when the priest entered with a small jar and filled the room with perfume. That was unlike anything I had seen before.

How did the worship service illuminate for you the history and contours of global Christianity?

Given how incredibly scripted and planned out the service was, I would surmise that it hasn’t changed much over the years. It also forced me to appreciate the setting for worship, with the sanctuary filled with depictions of Jesus and his disciples. The physical setting for worship certainly brought an awestruck feeling; I truly felt like I was walking into a special place, somewhere different from normal life that was to be treated as such. This is something that I think we sometimes miss as western Christians: worship and its atmosphere is not seen as much as a time set apart from normal everyday life. It seems through their service and atmosphere that tradition is key to them, whereas it is common in the western church to be constantly changing and modernizing worship.

Illuminate personal identity as Christian

This was only my second time attending an orthodox service, and it again forced me to realize that the church should not be a business looking to attract as many people as possible, as we have talked about in class. The number one thing I noticed was how focused people were on the service. People weren’t pulling out their phones and becoming easily distracted, or even gazing off into the distance. They were participating and focused in a way that I am not used to seeing in church. There was a strong sense that everyone in the sanctuary really wanted to be there. My reflection on this was that maybe they would rather have a small number of people (there were only about 50-60 people in attendance) who are passionately worshiping, than reach out to the masses and end up with a less enthusiastic or passionate worship. It reminded me of all the times I’ve shown up to church distracted with whatever happened to be going on in my life, and have not truly been present in the service. It served as a good reminder and a sort of kick in the pants at the same time: that although I don’t agree with everything they said or did, I need to do a better job of approaching worship with the vigor and passion of this small congregation.