A holiness meeting

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The service this morning was run by Major Oliver, a retired officer who has recently taken on the role of pastoral leader at our church, along with his wife. I've known the Olivers almost as long as I can remember; they were the officers at Winnipeg Citadel when I was six and my dad was stationed at DHQ there, doing an office job he hated. That puts them on the very short list of pastors I grew up with. In fact, the list includes them, my parents, and two other couples before I was sixteen. That's not a lot in the Army, especially considering how many places I lived in that time.

Major Oliver is from the old school of officership. He used real hymns and Salvation Army hymns that I haven't heard in years - "Power in the Blood," "Crown Him Lord of All," "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name," and the prayer chorus "He is Lord," all came straight from childhood for me. The songster selection was "Though Your Sins Be as Scarlet," which has a soaring soprano line and lovely movement to it. It is one of the selections I never had to learn. When I joined the songsters at the age of fifteen, it was on the list of "selections to pull out at the last minute if necessary," which was fine because I'd been hearing it regularly from infancy and could have sung almost any part. Our songsters have an excellent soprano section, so they did justice to it.

The band selection was another that I've always known - my favourite melody for "My Jesus I Love Thee." There are plenty of childhood memories of that one, too, but two stood out more than others. One was my dad playing that melody on his cornet, with that full, round sound that only a cornet player with British roots ever gets. It used to ring through the house when he practised, and it was one of his favourites. Because of the way the vents worked at one of our houses, he would play in the basement and I would hear it crystal-clear in my bedroom, two floors away. It was surreal. The other memory of that tune comes from my year in France. The protestant church I attended there had regular meals together after services, and they often had people singing or playing at these meals. I sang that melody, three verses, no accompaniment, at one of those meals. There was only one other person there whose English was good enough to figure out the words - an English teacher who had spent most of her adult life in France, but had grown up in England. She knew the hymn as well, though not that melody, and we communed with it while those around us just listened. It was the first time in my life that I had sung in "church" without the feeling that I was being judged on my musicality. I sang better than I ever had or ever have since, for myself and for God.

As usual, the music spoke to me more than the sermon did, though the sermon was excellent. I have more thinking to do about it.

I was left wishing the usual majors weren't on their way home; that the Olivers were the usual officers; that the usual majors were more like the Olivers; that the old school were still the current school. The Army has updated itself in many ways in the last twenty years, and some of the changes have not been good ones. "Praise and Worship Groups" (I hate that term - praise and worship are THE SAME THING, the term makes no sense!) have been introduced but no thought has been put into placing them within the liturgy. Officers (or at least, our officers) don't put enough thought into using the music to back up the message. Much of the liturgy has fallen into disuse, including methods of setting up a service so that it covers approaching God, listening to God, and responding to God. The result is a hodgepodge of music, prayer, and sermon that never seems to flow right. Each element ends up standing on its own, and they fall down much of the time because they're not supposed to stand alone; they're supposed to go together to create a whole that leads the congregation into communion with God.

I have no idea if the Olivers do their services that way because they know the liturgy and are using it, or because that's the way they've always done it without knowing the background or justification for it. For most officers, it was the latter, which is why so many have abandoned it in the first place. Whether they do it on purpose or out of accidental habit and forty-year-old training, though, makes no difference. It was a service designed to bring the congregation closer to God, to promote holy living in each person there, and it succeeded admirably. If the Olivers were still corps officers, I'd be transfering to their corps tomorrow.

Even though it highlighted many of my dissatisfactions with the Army, it also made clear to me why I'm still there - why I always will be. No other church does music quite like the Army does, and when it's done right -as it was today - it can be the focal point of the service, teaching as much or more than the sermon itself. On a superficial level, I would miss the band, the songsters, the timbrels, the music I've always known. On a deeper level, though, those things are tied in with my spirituality. I need those props, in the same way many Catholics need a rosary. It's more than symbolism, and it's more than culture. The music triggers responses in me that I don't get any other way.

Okay, this has been long. Now I'll go do some crocheting. I haven't got the new thread yet, and Piet is out, so I'll have to go when he gets back.