Holden Evening Prayer London Style

Over this summer, it has been a goal of mine to put more creativity into my work here at the Parish of St. Pancras. Being a Pastoral Assistant can be the same kind of work over and over again which is no fun. Thus, I decided to bring a little of myself into the act of worship here. Within this big plan of mine was the inclusion of the Holden Evening Prayer service into a Sunday mass. Father Bruce was extremely supportive with this idea and gave me the go ahead to try it out.

Holden Evening Prayer comes from a Lutheran retreat centre in the midst of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State. It is an extremely rural place that lies at the end of a 10 mile long lake so the only way to get there (unless being medically evacuated) is by boat. Holden Village is comitted to rejuvinating the Christian worship service with music and issues of peace and social justice.

The first thing that I had to do was to explain to an English parish what Holden Village was. "Holden Village is a Retreat Centre in Washington State", I said. "Oh, so does your church go there for meetings then?" "Yes, but mostly for worship and meditation", I replied. "Oh...meetings are not very medatative... at least in the Church of England". I finally figured out that what Holden Village is in "English terms" is a pilgramage site, not a retreat centre. After I made this clear, people finally had an idea on what I was talking about.

Holden Evening Prayer is also a serivce that is built on silence as well as music. Meditation is extremely important and somthing that I have gained a lot from in the service. At the begining of the worship, we had a long silence before the procession in. "This is going to be great!", I thought. The service began with me processing in with a candle and cantoring which broke the silence. I all of a sudden heard a high pitched "NOOOOO!!!!" from the side of the sanctuary. One of the young toddlers who had come didn't get their way and began to yell and scream. We then began the Evening Hymn which is a wonderful and soft hymn to begin the service. The yelling and screaming from before irritated another baby on the other side of the room which started to cry. Pretty soon, the hymn "Joyous Light" turned into a chorus of "Joyus Cries". AHH!! "They are ruining the service!!", I thought. "This isn't what it is suppose to be". Then, during one of the psalms which is sung in a round setting, ANOTHER baby started to cry which screwed me up in my leading the song. All of a sudden, the round started to become chaos. After the piece, I sunk into my chair...... "this service is a failure", I thought to myself.

Afterwards, I was helping with refreshments and had a herd of people come up to me. "What an incredible service!!", one person said. "It was so moving and the music was incredible!", another person said. "Thanks..", I replied still thinking to myself that they must be making up these coments just for me to feel good. At the very end, Peter Deed, an older member of St. Michael's Church came up to me and asked if he could keep the service sheet. "Ofcourse", I said. "Good, because it will be going right into my scrapbook when I get home. Everytime I will see it I will now think of the incredible young man you are and how wonderful Lutheran worship can be! It really touched me", he said. I was flaburgasted. He was going to put the service sheet into his scrapbook?? Really? Maybe everyone was not making up these coments. Maybe it truly was an experience that people felt God's presence in.

I think that when we bring somthing of ourselves to another environment to share, we want it exactly the same and want it to change people in the same way that it changed us. I know I put so many conditions on to how this evening worship would be recieved that I percieved it as a failure even before it ended. In truth, people do see how important somthing can be to you and will gladly take part in it. They will be changed....only in their own way. Holden Evening Prayer was a sucess for this place. People were rejuvinated and refreshingly suprised at how they found God in somthing new. That, I have finally figured out, was the whole point.