Went to church last Sunday, and it wasn’t bad.  However, I must say I went a long way to get there.  Air and airport time amounted to about eight hours.  But it turned out to be well worth it. 
     Now, large screen video monitors on either side of the chancel area are just not my cup of tea.  And by song leader’s  fifteenth passionate repetition of the same refrain, my emotions had hardened into cynicism.   There should be a law limiting the number of times “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” can be repeated in public.  It didn’t help that the words to that refrain also appeared on the massive video monitors each of those fifteen times.  A preschooler could have it memorized after the second time through.  I would have “turned my eyes upon Jesus,” if I could have torn them away from those bright, ever changing, “look-at-me, look-at-me,” monitors.  “The things of earth” were not growing dim at all, with those  monitors flashing and the spotlights highlighting the band, for whom the massive pipe organ provided an interesting backdrop.  What a visual study in contrasts.  The drummer was flailing away in front of the voluptuous base pipes, while the guitarist and song leader pranced between the massive, organ keyboard console and the smaller pipes on the other side.  I’d been told that this impressive organ was used at the early, traditional service, but certainly not at this upbeat, contemporary one.  My imagination was entertaining our fabulous and when needed, bombastic, Ron Nice, cranking that baby up to play “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and blowing the praise band clean across the room.  I could see guitars and drums flying through the sanctuary just above the heads of the worshipers, and the song leader, with microphone still in hand, splattered against the back wall.  Now that would be a fitting conclusion to the church music wars. 
     With all this going on, fortunately, there was plenty to read.  One would think that with song lyrics, prayers, sermon points, visual aids, announcements, and scripture appearing up on the video monitor, that all this technological advancement could at least save a few trees, seeing as  bulletins would not be needed.  Au contrair.  Hard copies of all this media info. were served up in the form of overstuffed, glossy and color-coordinated, eye catching bulletins.  A veritable treasure trove of information was put in each person’s hands which included a outline summary of the weekend’s men’s retreat which the pastor was leading, which is why the parish associate was preaching;  four pages of detailed announcements about every cause, activity, event, or service in which anyone in the church or community was involved.  There were four of  prayer requests, including one for Mrs. Betsy Cline’s toenail fungus, which, I assumed, they were against.  Had the preacher not stood up to the special, acrylic pulpit - the one used for the contemporary service - there is a wooden one available for the traditional worship,  and started telling e-mail jokes, I might have finished at least the first chapter of the bulletin. 
     But he did, and he got the audience warmed up for the main feature, which was his sermon on love, or actually, how not to love.  “Love is patient and kind...” the preacher read from 1 Cor. 13, and which we read from the video monitor;  “Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.”  And it dawned on me right about that time, I was  pretty good example of what love is not.  He’d nailed me without even trying; so I thought I’d better pay attention to the rest of his sermon.  He talked about pride; saying he was against it.  And he spoke of arrogance, which he didn’t recommend either.  Then he went into some of the devastating effects pride and arrogance can have in us, most of which I recognized all too easily.  It was a good sermon.  Five points as I recall, perhaps to match the five points of Calvinism which says that we are totally depraved, a fact of which I was now more fully aware; but thanks to God’s unconditional love and the atoning work and sacrifice of Christ, and his irresistible grace through which we are able to love, and whose Spirit perseveres over our arrogance and pride that threatens all this love.  The Sunday morning fiver pointer mirrored Calvin’s five almost to  perfection. 
     Speaking of fives, the stained glass windows were lovely.  Five on each side, each one consisting of three long panels depicting a section of Scripture.  Having finally trained my eyes to look at something other than the bright, and constantly changing overhead video monitors, I was able to gaze at the stained glass panels within my view.  These windows were so beautifully crafted, and so alive.  They told a story.  They told the biblical story of salvation history; and they, like the heavens of Psalm 19, were declaring the glory of God, “day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge..... their voice is not heard.”  Only the deaf, or distracted could miss it.   Surely folks here knew what the stained glass was saying.  In surround sound Creation played, and Abraham followed, then Moses, finally the Kings and the Psalms and the Prophets.  That was one wall.  On the other: the Birth of Jesus, the Baptism, the Teaching, the Cross and Resurrection, then the Sending forth of apostle and prophet, pastor and people, into all the world.  We were surrounded with the story of God.  We were, quite literally, IN the story ourselves.  
     After the service was over we walked around the sanctuary to take in these marvelous visual sermons, and see what illumination the details of each might bring.  We looked odd, I’m sure.  The rest of the folks were fellowshipping and chewing the fat as seems to often happen after worship, and rightly so.  But we moved from window to window, whispering about what was in each like we were in an art gallery, a holy gallery beckoning our reverential appreciation.  From the annoying video monitors and my annoying cynicism because of them and admittedly, my mental criticism of much else, to this; this sense of being in a story larger than me, a story infinitely more joyous and unfathomably deep  than mine, and one far more mysterious than I could imagine;  well truly, I had been led forth finally out of self and into worship. 
     But worship never happens alone.  Church, by its very nature, is communion and community.  And though I’d been greeted by some very smily and welcoming folks, though I’d shaken hands and exchanged pleasantries with the Deacon who handed me the all inclusive, the everything-from announcements-to prayer-lists to-“Cliff”-notes-for-the-sermon Sunday bulletin; and even though during worship we’d been invited to move about and greet folks also attending that day, it still didn’t feel like community.  Except; except, when I sat there in the pew next to the reason for whom I’d made this crazy trip to the other side of the country, my daughter.  We were the only ones in that pew, and we were sitting close enough for our arms to be touching.  It dawned on me later that people might be wondering about an old man sitting so close to a young, and so very attractive, lady.  Let ‘um wonder.  We, the two of us, were a community in worship within the larger worshiping community;  and without them, there’d have been no worship.   And even with the praise band, video monitors, acrylic podiums and all; it was a good thing.  No, I believe it was a God thing. 
     For some, the praise band might touch their heart.  Finally, eyes might  turn toward Jesus after the uncountable repetitions of lyrics instructing one to do so; despised as they were by me, the video monitors at least keep heads raised in a proper posture for praise.  Perhaps it was the sermon, or the scriptures, or the stained glass portraying the grand drama in which we live that made for worship.  Most assuredly worship will consist of communion with Father, Son, and Spirit; and also with community gathered for worship, love and praise. 
And the community with which I found myself in that lonely pew, led me to a joy and praise I’d never known.  Thank you Lord, for this dear child, who’ll always be a child to me, but who is now taking me to her church, and showing me her city, taking me to her place of employment, introducing me to her friends, and acquainting me with her ways, which are, so it seems, your ways through her.  And Lord, thanks.  Thanks Lord, I just could not be more thrilled.