Community

Yesterday, I mentioned that my family had recently spent some time celebrating a friend's Bar Mitzvah at our local synagogue, Temple Beth Shalom.

One of the many things I noticed when we joined our Jewish brothers and sisters for Shabbat, was that worship within this community was multi-generational. I saw children fidgeting, I saw older folks calming toddlers, I saw mothers quietly breast feeding infants, I saw teens smiling and poking one another, I saw parents and grandparents and singles. In short, I saw a cross section of life gathered together to pray and to worship.

In my church, children are conspicuously absent during worship and preaching. We are not a multi-generational worshipping congregation. Our children are allowed in the sanctuary if they remain quiet; but if they fidget, or snore, or need to breast feed, we are asked to remove our children from the sanctuary.

I think my church misses much of the beauty of corporate worship by not including the entirety of our lives in our worship. I believe we should be training up our children to revere the word of God, to appreciate and to actively participate in the beauty of our worship; and I believe that we should be doing this as a community of believers with patience and love in one hand and compassion and grace in the other.

Another thing I appreciated at Temple Beth Shalom, was the time that the community took to pray for the hurting and the ill. Each person in need of healing was mentioned by name. Each name was included in the community's corporate prayer. This was also done for those grieving the loss of loved ones. A prayer of mourning was recited as if to comfort each person who had lost someone to death over the past year. It was beautiful to have the mourners name their loved one, and to stand and to pray the Mourner's Kaddish.

I know that a church of our size would be greatly taxed to do this....but oh, how lovely it would be to corporately stand and to pray a prayer of love for our hurting brothers and sisters. I wonder why we do not do this? It is so healing, so lovely, so....well, so sacred.

I mentioned yesterday that Temple Beth Shalom is a very simple temple in the sense that it lacks ornamentation and decoration. The worship at Temple Beth Shalom was also simple. There weren't any instruments, or flashing lights or worship choirs. It was just God's people praying and singing together. Some of us were off tempo, some were off key, but all were joining together to praise our God. And it was beautiful.

And I have to tell you, the praying didn't stop in the sanctuary. We were blessing one another and praying in the lobby as well. It was as if the worship couldn't be contained, just as God cannot be contained, and the worship spilled out from the sanctuary into the common space of their communal life..the lobby.

Miracles of miracles, we were included. My family was surrounded and welcomed and embraced. Everyone there knew we were strangers and that we were not Jewish, but they welcomed us into their community of worship anyway. It felt good. It felt warm. It felt sacred. God was moving among His people and I felt Him in ways I've never felt God's presence in my own church.

Last Friday, on our way home from the Shabbat service, my ten year old son asked, "Mom, that was amazing. Can we become Jewish?"

My heart broke with that question, because it speaks so greatly of the lack of community we experience in our own church.

Something is broken in our church. I've said this over and over. I've tried to share this concern with our church leadership and I've been shunned and shamed. I've been told that the problem is mine, not the church's.

Now I know that things aren't perfect at Temple Beth Shalom. I know that wherever people gather, problems will arise. Human beings are imperfect and prone to petty rivalries, but I experienced something at Temple Beth Shalom that I haven't experienced in the nine years I've attended our neighborhood church. I experienced community. My family experienced community. And it was good.

Thank you Temple Beth Shalom for welcoming us, for taking us in.

We are truly grateful.