On Sunday the boys and I went with Leah to Seymour, Indiana, where she preached the sermon for the second week in a row at a small Presbyterian church. Nice church. Mostly old people, but nice. Hospitable.

They have been without a pastor for too long, though. Somebody thought it was a good idea to cut out the communal speaking of the creed so that the Stewardship chair could talk about financial commitment to the church. Something about that rankled me. I’m not saying there’s anything particularly magical or life-changing about the words of The Apostles’ Creed or any of the other Christian creedal statements – but I think there IS something liturgically important about the congregation standing up and saying a creed together. Not in the sense of literal adherence to the words, but in the communal sense of reminding ourselves – and one another – of the things that bind us and guide us, even in the midst of wrangling with how to live them out. I like to think that in the subtlest of ways, speaking the things we believe in a ritualistic manner, as a community, helps anchor those things in our minds. In a more ideal world, the communal repetition of creeds would help us take those beliefs out into our daily lives and provide us with a confident place to stand when we get tossed into the midst of those unexpected events – both little and large – that we encounter in our daily lives. Of course, in the world I experience, creeds are more often used as a means of categorization, separation, and dogmatic litmus-testing. Such is life. Read the full post.