Easter!

Back to my Easter weekend. The highlight was Easter Eve.

First, I went to Christ Church in Plano for the Saturday 5:30pm service. It played such an important role in drawing me to Anglicanism. Among other things, it was the first Anglican church I visited, opening my eyes to another world of worship. And I’ve wanted to celebrate Easter there for a long time.

What’s funny is the first time I went in the Fall of 2003, I thought, “This is so Catholic.” Now I think, “This is so evangelical.” Many of the songs are from the 1990’s led in a Praise and Worship Lite manner. I much preferred the more traditional songs with their big organ cranking and leading. I love their organ. I wish they used it more.

Now, the service didn’t annoy me like Denton Bible’s song time the next night . . . except for the Gradual. Now, to me, the Gradual means you read or sing a Psalm. But instead, we had How Great Thou Art sung in a very operatic manner while we just sat. I really like Psalms and participation better. (I’m not at all knocking the lady who sang. She was very impressive. But the format is not my worship style at all.)

But still the service meant a lot to me, and I left pumped up about Easter.

And I do appreciate how they reach out to those who might be freaked out by a more traditional formal service (perhaps me a year and a half ago?). Just because something isn’t my style doesn’t mean it’s not excellent. And they do mix things from both traditional and evangelical forms to reach a broad range of people.

Speaking of which, it was packed out. Communion took a long time.

Oh yeah, I went up front and got a birthday blessing from +Roseberry! I’ve been looking forward to that for a long time, and it meant a lot to me.

God bless Christ Church!

What made it that much more special for me was Ed Weaver and his daughter went to the service with me and out to coffee afterwards. He guided me and supported me through that rough time a couple churches ago. So he has played an important role in God’s grace and faithfulness to me these 30 years. It means a lot to me he was there.

Now his daughter was a very annoying little girl back then. She’s very cool now, however. ;^)

We had to cut coffee short, however, so I could get to St. Matthias for their Easter Vigil. Their rector had invited me specifically to that, promising it would be “glorious.” And, oh boy, was it!

But that will have to wait for another post.