Church is other people

Church is other people, a worshipping community. The worship, or praise of God, does not take place only when people gather on Sunday morning, but when they gather to paint the house of an elderly shut-in, when they visit someone in the hospital or console the bereaved, when Sunday school kids sing Christmas carols at the nursing home.

If a church has life, its "programs" are not just activity, but worship. And this is helpful, because if the Sunday morning service falls flat, it is the other forms of worship that sustain life. When formal worship seems less than worshipful—and it often does—if I am bored by the sheer weight of verbiage in Presbyterian worship—as I often am—I have only to look around at the people in the pews to remind myself that we are engaged in something important, something that transcends our feeble attempts at worship, let alone my crankiness.

—Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: a vocabulary of faith

Norris' approach is very Benedictine. This is not surprising as she has written (in Cloister Walk) about how influential a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery was in her own spiritual journey. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-543) helped create monasticism in the west. In time it was the monasteries influenced by Benedict that left their own impression on Christianity in England. At its best, the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part, reflects this Benedictine heritage. We'll take a closer look at how principles found in The Rule of Saint Benedict can be helpful to all Christians in the class starting Wednesday on Seeking God. We'll use Esther DeWaal's book Seeking God, but this first week we'll watch and discuss a video on the influence of Benedict which includes DeWaal and others discussing the Benedictine approach to life. The books are available at the church for $10 each.