The definition on Wikipedia of Evensong is pretty accurate to what I attended yesterday:

Evening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion (and other churches in the Anglican tradition, such as the Continuing Anglican Movement and the Anglican Use of the Roman Catholic Church) and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening. It is also commonly known as Evensong, especially (but not exclusively) when the office is rendered chorally (that is, when most of the service is sung). It is roughly the equivalent of Vespers in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches, although it was originally formed by combining the Roman Catholic offices of Vespers and Compline. Although many churches now take their services from Common Worship or other modern prayer books, if a church has a choir, Choral Evensong from the Book of Common Prayer often remains in use because of the greater musical provision. Evening Prayer, like Morning Prayer (Mattins) and in contrast to the Eucharist, may be led by a layperson, and is recited by some devout Anglicans daily in private (clergy in many Anglican jurisdictions are required to do so).

The service was lovely.  It was mostly sung, and the choir was AMAZING.  My only thought was that I wish I’d had the words they were singing in the program (I’m much more of a visual learner, so I get a lot more out of it if I can read along when I hear choral music).  The service was also a bit more traditional – there was incense, and the language was a bit older.  All in all, I enjoyed the service and will likely attend again, but the 11:15AM service will still be my regular service.

Does anyone else have any experience with Evensong?

10. No snake handling.
9. You can believe in dinosaurs.
8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.
7. You don’t have to check your brains at the door.
6. Pew aerobics.
5. Church year is color-coded.
4. Free wine on Sunday.
3. All of the pageantry – none of the guilt.
2. You don’t have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:

1. No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

Too true!

The app was developed by LifeChurch.tv – is anyone familiar with this organization?  It seems like this is a really interesting concept – a church that is primarily based online.  There are several service times, they’re big into podcasting and social media, and they appear to have a very active blog.  I’ve always thought that the communal nature of the Internet would be an interesting place to try and grow a church home, and it looks like LifeChurch.tv is attempting to do just that.  I’d love to hear more about how this works if you’ve had some experience with them!

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Acts 20:28

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I have begun “church shopping” here in Atlanta.  Today I am not only thankful that I live in a country where I can pick which church I go to, but I am thankful for all the options that Atlanta has to offer!  I was unable to find a church home where I felt comfortable in North Carolina, and so far I’ve visited 2 churches that I have really enjoyed – The Cathedral of St. Philip and Saint Martin In The Fields Church.  While they were both Episcopalian churches, they each had their own distinctive style (which is one of the things I love about the Episcopalian church – lots of different styles, but they all have the liturgy and doctrine in common).  I think I’m going to look around a bit more, just to make sure I’m not missing anything, but at the moment I’m leaning toward St. Philip’s.

I think this week I will visit St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church.  I also might visit St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, though it is a little further away from my house.  Anyone in the Atlanta area have any suggestions?

See what others are thankful for at Spiritually Unequal Marriage

I’m finally settled in Atlanta and I just started my internship on Monday.  I also went to my first Atlanta church on Sunday.  Once I get into the swing of things, expect to see more posts!

This post is being re-posted on 7/7/09 – I had a backup malfunction and lost 3 months of posts, and so I am re-posting them through my findings with Google Cache. I did NOT delete the comments, I just have no way of restoring them. I am sorry if you commented and it is lost!

The idea shouldn’t be a big surprise.  When I was in high school, I thought that a really cool idea would be to have a Christian theatre.  I felt so blessed to find Living Parables at my college!  Now that I’m seeing my career in the theatre, I’m wondering if I might one day actually start a Christian theatre.  My idea is that we would perform in churches and organizations as well as have larger productions in a theatre.  We would perform some existing work, but there would be a heavy emphasis on development, and much of what we would perform would be original work.

Why am I posting about this?  Well, it’s on my mind since I’m starting to think about thesis ideas (I’m considering creating a full business plan for this venture as my final thesis), but I also wanted a little bit of feedback.  If you had a group come in to your church for a performance, possibly retelling Bible stories or creating new skits that would be “modern-day” parables, what would you want to see?  What what are some new, artistic ways to express God’s love, our Christian walk, and the thoughts of the Bible?  What have you seen so many times that you hope to never see it again?

What was I doing in Florida? Why, I was taking confirmation classes to join the Episcopal Church! This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but have been unable to get the scheduling to work out. I wanted to join at our church at home instead of a church up here in North Carolina, but every time the class was offered I was unable to make it back to Florida to attend. But this year, it worked out, and I am so thrilled that I will be able to join the church now! The actual service takes place in a month, so I’m not official yet, but I learned a lot, and I will be sharing a post soon about what I’ve learned about the Book of Common Prayer.

Hat Tip: ThinkChristian