Janet, Jettie, and I returned last evening from our excursion to Washington D.C. enlightened, intrigued, encouraged, and, to some degree, entertained (at least by the Southwest stewardesses).
A week ago we attended Capitol Hill Baptist Church just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. The building is 150 years old, with old creaky pews with just a thin seat pad, balconies, siderooms used for seating, and no narthex. Being as the seating is here, there, and yon (no place for screens), all the music is printed in the bulletin which was 16 half pages long.
We arrived for the Sunday School hour and met a pastor who told me to expect a 2 hour worship service and best to attend the sanctuary SS class so to have group seating come the 10:30 worship time. So we found seats and settled in for what became about 3.25 hours of church. The SS opened with a pastor who had each SS teacher talk about their class and where they met. Our class was about evangelism using Genesis 1-3. It was good. There were probably 50 in the class.
About 10:25 was a prayer and in they came – hundreds. The vast majority mid-30’s and younger. The ushers worked those already seated to find more room.
We sang 8 hymns – only one newer one – “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)”, four well -known hymns like “Precious Lord, Take my Hand”, and three new but singable hymns. They had a guy with a guitar, a gal on the Steinway, and four male and female singers. We stood for most songs. On almost every last verse, the instruments dropped out so the singing was a cappella. Did I say they sing? They did – they all sang – they all sang out/loudly – they really sang! And Pastor Mark Dever was on the platform singing out every word. It was impressive – unlike anything I have ever seen in a church service.
There were a couple of passages read and a number of prayers – long prayers.
The guest speaker was Pastor Mark Vroegop from Indianapolis who spoke on lamenting using Psalm 77 as his text. He told his story and shared his development of a theology of lamenting – it was good.
Like I said, the worship time went for two hours. Immediately after I heard a little commotion behind me, but did not turn as I was engaged with the Canadian who sat beside me. The commotion? Vice President Pence and his wife were present as it was their pastor who was speaking. I did not see the VP (tears).
The Canadian was a pastor in a French speaking church so his English was a little difficult to unpack. He was there for a week of training at the church. Meanwhile Janet and Jettie were engaged with a pastor from Romania who was also there for the week’s training. He told about his grandfather being arrested and beaten under the Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu (many of us are aware of the horrific story of Richard Wurmbrand who suffered under the same leader and the same time). This young man was articulate, exciting, and sound – a blessing.
As there is no narthex, the crowd lingered and chattered. We left some 20 minutes after the closing and there were still many in the sanctuary. It was a unique experience.
I love church!
a PK Musing 
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