An Open Window: The United Church of Christ

There’s a saying that “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” One of my “closed doors” the last few years has been the music program at my church. I’ve played with the choir once or twice a year, but, unfortunately, the regular instrumental program has been closed all four times I’ve volunteered, even as a substitute (I do wish the priest would stop saying “All our ministries are open” because it always reminds me of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” I’ve been at churches before where ministries are closed – that doesn’t bother me as much as the inaccuracy in the rhetoric.). 

But, a window opened at the local United Church of Christ last spring. A friend of mine, who is in the choir there, asked if I could help with a piece that needed a flutist. So I got involved with their choir. It’s a much smaller choir than the one at our church, and much less formal, but no less enthusiastic. I accompanied the choir a few Sundays, played some Bach and Faure pieces with the piano, and had a great time. They always need singers so my husband and my son would sing bass, and I would sing either soprano or alto during the rests when I wasn’t playing flute. 

One thing that I’ve had to get used to in the Episcopalian church is the formality. Now, Episcopalians do formal worship more beautifully than any other church I’ve visited, and I really enjoy the worship there. But the formality, of dress and behavior, has been something I’ve had to get used to (and even our Episcopalian church didn’t seem as formal when we first joined as it does now). As a change, I really enjoyed the less formal worship at the United Church of Christ. Not that their worship was any less heartfelt – it certainly wasn’t! But tone is different. At one point, in the children’s part of the service, one of the associate pastors got down on the floor to do a little puzzle with the children. At the beginning of one service, two of the pre-teen girls went up to light the candles, one with bare feet. Women were wearing everything from suits to plain, everyday clothes, and it didn’t matter. It seemed almost more like a big family worshiping. 

I also really like the attitude that I saw there towards gay and lesbian Christians. There has been so much controversy in the Episcopalian church over the election of a bishop who is gay, that sometimes the common humanity of our gay and lesbian siblings in faith seems to get lost. They become just a subject to be argued over, rather than fellow seekers in Christ (and I see this attitude from both sides of the argument). The United Church of Christ, or at least this community, sees them in the latter way – as brothers and sisters serving the Lord. 

It would have been very easy to join and get involved there, and we discussed it for a while. Our faith, however, is very focused on the Eucharist, and that is not viewed in the same way in the United Church of Christ. We even considered joining there for volunteering, worship and fellowship, and attending daily Mass for the Eucharist, but that seemed a bit too convoluted. I would love to play there again, though – my heart would sing along with my flute.