I’ve become a fan of Evening Prayer. EP this past Wednesday at Small Continuing Anglican Church was particularly special because of two things that happened afterwards.

First, immediately after the conclusion of Evening Prayer, they did “Hymn Practice,� which I’ve never seen or heard of before. Everyone sat in close (unlike the services where people like to sit far back, which is funny at such a small church). The kids sat in the first two rows.

The rector then led us through a “new� hymn to debut this coming Sunday. Actually, it was an ancient hymn – we’re talking 5th century folks – as are a lot of the hymns sung there. I like most of the old hymns they sing, by the way. Beats the tail out of “Lord, I lift your name on high.�

Anyway, the rector read through a verse, then asked us (particularly the kids) what the verse meant. Then a kid or two would pipe right up. They were into it and gave intelligent answers. Sometimes the adults said something intelligent, too. After we did each verse this way, we practiced singing it with the big organ in back accompanying us. We sang lustily. It was great.

You can tell the kids really liked it. It’s one of the ways kids participate with the whole church. This church doesn’t believe in segregating the kids or dumbing things down for them. And the kids seem to like that.

Second, during the EP service, where we paused to pray for specific people, I prayed for a high school guy I know who is having a tough time after his dad committed suicide a couple years ago. Well, when I got back to my hotel, there was a very encouraging e-mail waiting for me from him. It turns out he wrote it the same hour as the service!

Hey, God answers Evening Prayer!