In seminary we often talked about being a “connectional church.” This means that none of us are an island — not pastors, not churches, not individuals. We have a profound theological understanding that we are better together. In fact, we are called to be together. We see this play out in our polity in a variety of ways. It is very apparent in the way we govern. Pastors and elders work together to lead the church. Churches work to form, govern and fellowship together as presbyteries. Then we move on to the synods and the General Assembly where the whole church gathers to worship and to govern.
During Holy Week, in the midst of this pandemic, I was given a tremendous gift to partner with other churches for two online worship services. On Maundy Thursday, I teamed up with several other Presbyterian pastors from the area and through the wonders of technology we led worship together. On Good Friday, I worked with my Episcopal and Methodist colleagues in town to lead the brief time of worship our church was to host this year. At that point we were all fairly new to making worship happen in this new context.
Despite the stress of these ever-changing times, I really found it life-giving to work with other pastors during that week. I have found myself pondering why is it that we all focus so much on doing our own thing all the time. I do work with a variety of churches just a few times of year in the town where I currently serve: during Lent, for a blessing of the animals, for Thanksgiving and so on.
Why is it we don’t make the effort to worship together more often?
The ecumenical side of answering that question it is a little easier to answer. While we all hold to certain truths, the way we express them in worship and the world is different.
Within our own denomination it gets harder to answer. Maybe we didn’t even think about sharing in Holy Week worship before because we are so programmed to do our own thing. The churches that worked together during Holy Week are about an hour apart. That could very well be too much of a drive on a typical Thursday night. Perhaps, there is a bunch of history I am not aware of yet. Maybe we live in fear of members jumping ship, since many of us are close enough geographically that our members could choose to change where they attend church.
Yet, as this pandemic continues much longer than any of us anticipated, I am seeing more and more connection happening between churches. During my recent scheduled time off, we could no longer bring in pulpit supply. So, I shared a link to worship at a sister church for that week. (This was arranged ahead of time and with permission.) I have offered the same to my colleagues, saying, “Feel free to link your folks to our worship so you can rest.” We have churches without pastors that have been invited to worship online with us during this time. I have been talking with fellow ministers all over the country about how we might start working together.
I find myself curious and excited about the ways we might work together in the future! How wonderful is it to praise God and worship with our sister congregations and denominations? How might we serve our communities, the people of God, more fully together? Could we perhaps set our differences down to serve the greater need? Maybe we are being called to live into our call of being the connectional church more fully. Let our hearts be open and willing to go where God is leading. It will be challenging work, but worth the effort.
REBECCA GRESHAM-KESNER is pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church in Medford, New Jersey. Outside of church and family life, you can find her in nature, finding fun ways to be creative or asking awkwardly deep questions of people she just met.
