Five pounds of bread, Lord?

Community Gospel Chapel

Voorhees, New Jersey

June 17, 2007

Lucky indeed. Just a couple blocks from the LDS church I find the Community Gospel Chapel, which has an 11:00 “Bible Hour.” (Later, after I’m home, I realize that I never would have found this church by looking through the yellow pages, as it is not listed.)

As I enter the parking lot a little before 11:00, I wonder if perhaps the sign out front was wrong; there are only six cars in the parking lot. But I see someone entering the front doors, and I follow.Inside, framed Bible verses hang on the walls of the vestibule. Some very friendly people greet me and urge me to come down to the basement fellowship area, where people are eating. I am invited to eat with them. They are having what looks like picnic food - barbecued chicken, potato salad, and fruit salad.

This is a small but very racially balanced group (white, black, and Asian), and everyone is quite welcoming. I am introduced to just about everyone present. The food is from a church get-together at someone’s home yesterday, and it seems that everyone had a great time.

As people prepare for church, I notice that the women are donning head coverings, mostly black or white lace scarves. I inquire about this, and the woman who first greeted me says that she keeps extras for visitors, if I’d like to borrow one, and I say fine, that would be great. She’s very nice about this; she waited for me to ask, and made a point of noting that I was welcome to borrow the scarf, but certainly not required to wear it.

We go upstairs for the service, and the woman who gave me the head covering sits with me in a pew near the front. The sanctuary is small (seating about one hundred or maybe slightly fewer, I think). The walls are painted a crisp mint green, and darker green curtains hang at the sides of the clear glass windows. The platform features a center pulpit, and American and Christian flags on either side (I haven’t been keeping track of this up till now, but I suddenly realize that almost every sanctuary has two flags up front – usually the American flag and the Christian flag, but sometimes other combinations).

There is an organ on one side of the center platform, and a piano on the other, and a screen has been pulled down in the center, behind the pulpit. An overhead projector beams the words of the hymns onto the screen, but the copying is fuzzy, so the words are a little difficult to see. There is a bulletin of sorts. It is not really a program for the service, but rather a compendium of general information for the month. It tells me that Community Gospel Chapel has a Breaking of Bread service at 9:30 am, refreshment and fellowship at 10:30 am, Sunday School for children at 10:45 am, Bible Hour at 11:00 am, and then a Bible Ministry Meeting at 6:00 pm on Sundays. So I must have entered at the end of the refreshment and fellowship time. There is also a 7:30 pm Hour of Prayer every Wednesday, followed by an Elders’ Meeting, and there is a Men’s Business Meeting the third Wednesday of every month.

There doesn’t seem to be a pastor at Gospel Fellowship. Instead, speakers are listed for each Sunday. Interestingly, the speaker two weeks ago was a man named Wali Ahmad – a Middle Easterner? Today’s speaker will be a man from this congregation. In addition, two people have been named as Emblem Passers for the month. Various women of the congregation are responsible for the refreshments each Sunday.

Something about all this seems tantalizingly familiar, but I can’t place it. Gospel Chapel, Breaking of Bread, Bible Hour, Emblem Passers, the framed scripture verses, no paid ministers, no offering, head coverings – what denomination is this? I ask my hostess, but she tells me that they are not members of any denomination, just Christians. That also sounds familiar.

A black man leads us through some old-fashioned hymns; we are accompanied by an older white woman on the organ and a young black man on the piano, who seems to be the son of the song leader. Later the young man does a nice solo on the organ.

The sermon is delivered by a man who tells us that he is 75 years old and owns a plumbing business. He is wearing an American flag tie. He takes us through a large number of Bible texts – this is a sermon in the “Bible aerobics” style, where the congregation is asked to follow along by lifting a heavy Bible onto their laps and then flipping rapidly back and forth among dozens of verses. Almost everyone has brought his or her own Bible, and many are enclosed in those big leather or plastic cases that are popular with many Christians.

The almost weightless scarf on my head is astonishingly heavy; I’m constantly imagining that it has slipped off or gone awry, and reaching up to twitch it imperceptibly closer. For the first time in nearly forty years, I wish I had a bobby pin – and suddenly realize that I haven’t so much as seen a bobby pin in almost forty years. Do they still exist? They were ubiquitous in my childhood; every woman and girl had supplies at hand, in the bedroom, bathroom, and stuffed into purses. All vanished now, at least in my world.

In addition, I seem to be hyper-aware of the lacy black film on the edges of my peripheral vision, and have to consciously avoid checking the position of this apparition, which seems to shimmer and appear and disappear, depending on how my eyes are focused. The weight of this mini-hajib is much greater than I had expected, at least psychologically.

I’m sorry to report that I am not entirely sure what the point of the sermon is. It is long (about 40 minutes), and covers lots of territory. I have found this rambling style typical of non-professional preachers, so this is not surprising. At any rate, what really gives me pause is that at one point the speaker mentions that he was saved at the age of eight, and baptized by MacKintosh. He pauses at this point, and says, “Not the famous MacKintosh – I’m not that old! – but I think it was his son.” Aha – this is a Brethren church, I bet!

Early in our Christian lives Neil was very interested in the Plymouth Brethren. He even owned the complete works of John Nelson Darby, the Plymouth Brethren preacher who first came up with the doctrine of the Rapture. (The Rapture teaches that Christians will be whisked off the earth and into heaven during the end times, just before the Great Tribulation. This is the basis for the popular Left Behind series of books.) I didn’t read nearly as much theology as he did, but I absorbed a good bit of information about the Brethren.

No offering is taken - another characteristic of Brethren churches. At the end of the service I return the head scarf to the woman who lent it to me, and she urges me to come downstairs and take home some of the leftover food. I follow her downstairs, where a man is packing up the supplies, and he loads up a plastic bag with whole wheat and whole grain breads and muffins, and insists that I take it. I leave the church amid many friendly wishes and good-byes.

My impression of the group is that they are a happy, dedicated, close-knit bunch. Even though they wouldn’t agree with much of the theology of, say, the Bible Presbyterians, they share other qualities of that group, such as their determination to lead a life that is “in the world, but not of it.” (Until you’ve tried doing this, on any level, you don’t realize how difficult and yet rewarding it can be.)

In the last eight weeks I have experienced various modes of following Christ’s command to eat the bread and drink the cup. I’ve had thin round flour-and-water wafers, pieces of ordinary white bread, and pita bread. I’ve drunk wine and grape juice. I’ve taken Communion via intinction. I’ve gone up to the altar, and I’ve had the elements served to me as I sat in my pew. How many different ways can the church re-enact this sacrament? (Brethren would not use the word sacrament, by the way.) If God is trying to say something to me via the symbolism of the bread, I’m ready to listen. But what is it? All I know is, I’m driving home with five pounds of bread (five pounds, Lord?), and thinking about these very foreign and yet very familiar Christians with whom I’ve just spent the last hour.

At home, I checked the entry for Plymouth Brethren on Wikipedia. Plymouth Brethren originated not in Plymouth, England, but in Dublin, Ireland, around 1827. But they first became well known in Plymouth, and that’s why the name stuck. There are two main distinctions among Brethren, the Open Brethren and the Closed (or Exclusive) Brethren.

As you might guess from the names, Open Brethren let anyone attend their meetings, and Closed Brethren tend to have a members-only system, although the differences can seem small to an outsider. For example, Open Brethren might say it’s fine for anyone to attend a service, but outsiders cannot take Communion (which is just like plenty of other churches). A few Exclusive Brethren congregations might forbid outsiders from attending any part of their service, but others operate pretty much the same way as the Open Brethren churches in that regard. Open Brethren groups are usually autonomous, whereas Closed Brethren groups have stronger connections with each other. One of the main practical results of this is that a member who has been “disciplined” by a Closed Brethren group might find it difficult to take Communion with another Closed Brethren group, which will honor the decision of the first group and refuse to let the disciplined brother break bread with them.

Another difference is that some Open Brethren groups will cooperate with other churches; for example, they might allow their youth to participate in a youth group event at a conservative evangelical church. Closed Brethren groups are much less likely to participate in ecumenical activities. All the groups look askance on symbols, and would be unlikely to have a cross displayed in their meeting halls. They would be really, really unlikely to display a religious statue or picture. The only “decoration” that is viewed favorably is framed Bible verses, and you’ll find these in Brethren meeting rooms and homes. I’ve cross-stitched and needlepointed my share of Bible verses for just such purposes.

Like the Mormons, Brethren do not believe in a paid clergy. Instead, assemblies are governed by groups of elders (men only), and some groups even worry that the title of Elder sounds a little too much like clergy, and just call the people who make decisions “leading brothers.” Other groups have found it necessary to find someone who can be paid to take on full-time preaching and teaching duties, but even in those cases they call such men something like a “laboring brother” or “full-time worker” rather than something that sounds more churchy, such as pastor.

Brethren place tremendous emphasis on the Lord’s Supper, and celebrate it every week, usually in a special one-hour service, sometimes called the “Breaking of the Bread” or “Remembrance Service.” They typically call the bread and wine emblems. I find it quite interesting that this group, which probably places more emphasis on the Lord’s Supper in terms of time within the service devoted to it that any other group, also holds strongly to a non-sacramental view of the elements – that is, they are memorialists, who believe that the elements (or emblems) are symbols of Christ’s sacrifice and not actual conveyances of His presence.

Folks on the other side of the question (who often self-identify as believers in the Real Presence) usually think that memorialists hold a less exalted, less respectful, and just generally less worshipful view of the Lord’s Supper, but in actuality you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who emphasizes its importance more than Brethren congregations.

Remembrance Services are usually arranged much like Quaker services; there is no formal liturgy. Rather, men (women are usually not allowed to speak) will speak, quote Scripture, pray, or begin a hymn (with no musical instruments allowed) as they are moved by the Spirit. Toward the end of the hour someone will pray over the bread, break it, and begin passing it around. The quiet, prayerful congregants break off pieces and eat them individually. The same system is used for the wine. (Brethren tend to use wine rather than grape juice, but they might allow grape juice for someone who has had problems with alcohol.) I hope this congregation will allow me to observe their Breaking of Bread service at some point in the future, when my year of visiting churches is over.

The influence of the Brethren has been quite disproportionate to their tiny numbers and relatively recent arrival upon the religious scene. It’s rather difficult to estimate numbers, as most Brethren fellowships do not keep membership rolls; in fact, in many cases you can’t actually “join” a Brethren church; you just show up and fellowship, or you don’t. They are famous for support of foreign missionaries, and a surprising number of Christian leaders have Brethren roots. Then, of course, there’s that whole end times/Rapture thing, which has influenced huge swathes of the evangelical world.

I found a Plymouth Brethren discussion forum on the Internet, and poking around there I learned that they seem to be concerned about the same things as most other churches. For example, there are predictions that the group will be out of business within another twenty or thirty years, due to dwindling numbers. Roy Hill, a chronicler of Brethren history, notes that in the 1950s there were about 1800 Brethren assemblies in the United Kingdom, with around 100,000 or so attendees. By 2003 there were only about 1100 assemblies and 40,000 attendees. There’s a bit of lively discussion on the forum about why women are not allowed to speak in assembly meetings. For example: “There have been times I have been moved at a Breaking of Bread service to share a song or even just to read a scripture and I can't share because I lost the lottery in gender. Yet I get to listen to men who have no idea of what they speaking of.”

So it happened that I visited two very different types of restorationist churches on this Sunday, an LDS church and a Brethren church: one denomination big and famous, the other small and obscure (and also adamant about not being identified as a denomination). I’m becoming increasingly glad that I am visiting all these churches. This project is turning out to be more interesting than I had imagined.