Another spiritual game in town

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Kim's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

I am lucky enough to serve a church, in Chicago, where people are excited about coming to worship. I teach new member classes, in which many people cite worship as the thing that has really drawn them to want to get better connected with the church.

Our church worships according to a very structured, and very traditional, Presbyterian liturgy—we don’t go in for all the modern niceties of one-on-one interaction during the worship hour, or the razzle-dazzle of modern instruments and multimedia presentations. And the music, beautifully and faithfully prepared choral renditions accompanied by a grand organ, is hardly what you would call contemporary (though more recent anthems from American and international communities are regularly included). It’s not just older people who rave about worship, the liturgy, the music, and the intellectual preaching, either. All these things connect with younger people as well.