Write About Now

I would rather scrub toilets than work on most church staffs. I’d even prefer cleaning the bathrooms at the church. But I might change my mind if Church of the Incarnation came calling.

This new congregation just held its first services this past Sunday at St. Matthew and St. Timothy church, an Episcopal congregation near Central Park. (You’d know all this if you received the CS enews. Sign up here.)

In keeping with the more formal (and beautiful) worship space there, Church of the Incarnation has adapted a liturgical service style. Of course, this is also user-friendly to the many unchurched New Yorkers with Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican backgrounds. Services combine prayers of confession and responsive readings with songs from a variety of time periods. You can find examples of their liturgies here.

“The new church has an old name for a specific reason,” says Orchard Group, the church planting organization that helped to start COTI. “First, ‘Incarnation’ ties the community and its vision to the heart of the good news in Scripture—God taking on flesh in Jesus Christ in order to renew all of creation. Second, ‘Incarnation’ ties the community and its style to practices of worship shared by the ancient church. New churches in the city who are more contemporary in feel are healthy and effective. Yet Incarnation is taking a different approach by retrieving a range of ancient practices in the hopes of providing a hospitable environment for New Yorkers who might not gravitate towards more contemporary expressions of faith and worship.”

I love this, and I can’t decide if I’m more envious of Rhesa Storms, who plans the weekly services, or Jonathan Williams, who organizes service projects, book clubs and movie groups. If you guys need any help, give me a call. Bathrooms are negotiable.