Ambassadors Visit St. Michael’s, Unionville (Kennett Square)
Second time’s the charm. Last week we set out to visit St. Michael, Unionville, and ran into multiple detours and road blocks. We returned this week and experienced no problems.
St. Michael’s appears to be a thriving congregation that relocated to a 7-acre rural lot about 25 years ago and has undergone some major expansion projects since. We entered an unusual sanctuary, much wider than long. Attendance on this Thanksgiving weekend was probably a little over 100, although we didn’t tally.
Their worship was traditional with an LBW liturgy. A hostess explained after the service that the choir had a week off in preparation for the busy holiday season to come. Two members sang a beautiful duet. They introduced one new Advent hymn and used several other more traditional Advent hymns.
Their new associate pastor gave a nice sermon and children’s sermon and blessed the work of their knitters and crocheters who had made prayer shawls. They seemed to be in the midst of a stewardship drive — seems to be that time of year!
We also heard a talk from a son of the congregation involved in mission work in Mexico. He talked about taking an ethnocentric approach to spreading the Gospel and noted that their were 8000 ethnic groups or “nations” waiting to hear the Good News. He claimed that the Gospel is often best shared in setting geared to individual ethnic traditions. We talked with him extensively after the service and shared our multicultural approach.
We talked to several members after church and learned a good deal about their ministry experiences.
We inquired about their new web site project which we had reviewed before attending.
We had a delightful visit and enjoyed sharing our story and learning from theirs.