Ambassadors Visit St. Mark’s, Clifton Heights
It’s Mothers Day! The Ambassadors had some business in Upper Darby, so we chose to visit the early service at St. Mark’s in nearby Clifton Heights. This way we’d have most of the day to spend with family.
One of our Ambassadors is from a church which merged with St. Mark’s. He is a bit upset that they have dropped the name. It is officially St. Mark’s Temple, he told us.
St. Mark’s is one of those back door churches. Most people seem to enter from the back door into the narthex. We didn’t see the expansive front of the church until we left.
The narthex was full of tables with various offerings. The sanctuary is long and narrow. We Ambassadors usually sit in the back. The back in this case is quite far from the front. Our new Ambassador, who is familiar with the church, chose a seat close to the front.
The early service is listed as the Praise service and they used the Praise hymnal. These modern hymns are not particularly meaty and most have just one verse. They are meant to be chanted or repeated multiple times, building emotion. Lutherans have a hard time repeating more than twice, so that leaves hymn-lovers a bit wanting. Short on theology and emotion.
It was a bare-bones liturgy with the words projected on a screen. The screen tends to replace the altar as the focal point.
The people were friendly and some recognized our Ambassador whose family has a long history at Temple. He asked about some of the historic portraiture. Apparently, they have already archived the Temple side of the merger.
The organist and her daughter did an interesting anthem that combined the Shaker Hymn, ’Tis A Gift to Be Simple, with Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Two voices managed at times to sound like more!
The congregation is in the interim pastor process. It’s been nearly a year and a half. Interminable interims! The congregation seems to have a pretty strong sense of identity and purpose. Their statistics, at least as presented on their web site, seem to be growing. We wonder why they have endured such a long interim period.
Pastor Arlene Greenwald followed the congregational custom of gathering the entire congregation at the altar for the Eucharist. There were about 30 present. As a visitor, I find it to be a bit awkward—communing with people who represent the church that has worked so hard to destroy our congregation and attacked me personally in court. So I usually sit out communion. I actually enjoy the quiet time.
We have been made very unwelcome within the church of our heritage. There has never been any attempt to reconcile with us, which makes the offering of communion seem disingenuous. All of the congregations we visit have it within their power to make a difference. All seem content to do nothing. Year after year. Weekly communion seems to be a pacifier to the communal Lutheran conscience—along with empty offerings of prayer that substitute for action.
Potted posies were given as gifts to the mothers. So nice. Our pastor wanted one to put on his mother’s grave.
One of our Ambassadors asked for a detour on the way home to view some sculpture. It was worth the drive.
We had a Mothers Day Breakfast together.
Of course, at Redeemer, we all remember Mothers Day 2009, when SEPA Synod representatives visited our church and attempted to commandeer our worship service.