Ascension Lutheran Church is only eight minutes from my home. It’s a small neighborhood church, on a corner in one of those New Jersey neighborhoods that look like Hollywood’s version of the ideal American small town. Although I find the building easily enough, I cannot find the entrance to the parking lot. I drive around the block again, and this time find a parking spot on the street. I walk through the parking lot, looking for the front of the church. Someone else arrives about the same time, and I ask her if the front doors are around the corner. She says yes, but everyone enters through the back door that faces the parking lot.
By this time I’m a little bit late. I wait outside the sanctuary while the Prayer of Confession and Forgiveness is being said, and then enter with a couple other latecomers. I find a pew all to myself, right next to the small organ, and look around while we sing the first hymn.The church seats about 100, and there are about fifty people present. In addition to the pastor, there are three servers: a man, a woman, and a boy, all wearing white robes. Rev. Jack Slotterback wears a white robe with a green stole.
The ceilings are not especially high, as befits a smaller church, but there are plenty of stained glass windows, mostly in shades of blue. The service moves along briskly. The first lesson is from I Kings, the story about Elijah healing the widow’s son. It is read by a woman who simply stands up in the middle of the aisle, and then takes her seat again in the pews. I have a little trouble following along with the prayers and readings in the hymnal and the bulletin insert, but I’m sure I would catch on to their system pretty quickly if I attended regularly.
Rev. Slotterback does not speak from the pulpit; instead, he too steps forward and stands in the center aisle. He speaks simply and effectively, using as his text Galatians 1:11-24, which he described as “Paul’s resume.” The main points are that God knows us by name, and knew us even before we were born. In addition, God has a plan for our lives, and we should try to find out what it is. A clue about how to discover God’s plan for our lives is in Paul’s account of what he did after becoming a Christian: he “went away at once into Arabia.” Like Paul, we need to seek God in Arabia, which could be any place where we can get away and pray. We should strive to find an Arabia in our lives every day.
It’s a very clear and practical sermon, about 15 minutes long. In addition, I learn that Rev. Slotterback has two dogs, Bailey and Luther.
During Intercessory Prayers (in the bulletin, at the part that reads “Here other intercessions may be offered”) people in the pews just mention names of other people, quietly and all at once. I find this surprising, but rather effective.
Next is Communion. We walk to the front altar in groups and kneel, and because of where I am in the pews, I am in the first group. Just before we reach the altar, each person takes an empty plastic communion cup from a tray held by a server. At the altar, the consecrated wine is poured from a common cup into each individual cup. This seems a nice way of bridging the gap between a common cup and individual cups, and really much like what you would expect at a meal – the host pours everyone’s wine from one container, but everyone has his or her own cup.
However, when the pastor reaches me, he stops, looking troubled. He puts his hand on my shoulder. Perhaps this is a closed communion church after all, and I am going to be asked to step down! Instead, the pastor says, “I’m very sorry, but I’m blanking on your name.” I reply, “It’s Emilie, although there’s no reason you should know it.” He then pours the wine into my cup, saying, “Emilie, receive the blood of our Lord.”
I realize then that he is in the habit of speaking everyone’s name individually during Communion, which is a nice thing when it can be managed. Either that, or – was I not supposed to take communion at this church? I hope I haven’t caused Rev. Slotterback any kind of crisis of conscience.
The next server hands me a communion wafer. However, because of the pause while the pastor asked my name, I hadn’t noticed what the people before me had done – did they drink the wine and eat the wafer at the altar, or take them back to their seats? I stand and see that someone is waiting with a basket for the empty cups, so I quickly drink the wine, drop the cup into the basket, and walk back to my seat. I bow my head and put the wafer into my mouth.
I’m feeling a little uneasy about taking communion here, being so unclear about the process that I wasn’t very worshipful at all, and possibly upsetting the pastor. Perhaps I should stop taking communion with other denominations. Before beginning this year of visiting I hadn’t realized that the “joyful feast of the Lord” would turn out to be one of the more difficult parts of Christendom to figure out.
All three hymns in this service are very traditional, and I notice and appreciate how often the old hymns mention death. It’s a good idea to think about death every so often, especially in church.I join the line of people exiting the church; there is no coffee hour. When I reach the pastor, he remembers my name, and hands me a visitors’ packet, which is on the shelf behind him. The whole experience of him asking my name at the Communion rail and then saying my name again as I left fit in very well with his sermon point about God knowing us all by name.
The visitor’s packet contains brochures, a copy of the quarterly newsletter, a magnet with church information, and a bookmark. Rev. Slotterback’s calling card is fitted into a slot inside the packet, and it is emblazoned with the words, “I’d love to hear from you!” From the newsletter I learn that the church has a mission statement: “Ascension Lutheran Church – empowered by Jesus to love, pray, praise, grow, and serve those in need.” I bet that slogan was written by a committee.
After the service I checked the church’s website (should have checked it before the visit, but sometimes you just don’t do things in the proper order.) Ascension Lutheran was founded in 1916. One of their early church groups, founded in 1920, was the Harmony Social Sunshine Club, which is as cool a retro name for a contemporary church fellowship group as any I’ve ever heard. Who wouldn’t want to be part of the Harmony Social Sunshine Club?
Ascension Lutheran has entered into a partnership with five other local ELCA churches, and they share services and events on occasion. That seems like a sensible thing for a group of small churches to do; it would be a big help for youth group leaders, to name just one obvious benefit.
The church seems to have an emphasis on prayer, and there is a place on their website where you can enter information about a prayer need, which will be passed along to the prayer team, the prayer chain, or the prayer partners. In addition, they make prayer turbans for women who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy, and prayer chaplets to send to military personnel in Iraq.
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