a word about Metanoia's morning prayer service

Pastor John of Metanoia Peace Community holds morning prayer services Monday through Saturday at 7:20AM. While the services follow a more or less standard liturgy, one that would be familiar to a Presbyterian despite the Methodist tenor of the services, one striking (and to my mind pleasing) difference is how the community has chosen to handle the part of the liturgy normally reserved for sermons.

In a spirit that is somewhat similar to many of the dharma talks I've heard in Korean Buddhist temples in Korea and the US, Pastor John runs his "reflections" on scripture as more of a Q&A session or dialogue (the latter more than the former, in fact; come to think of if, John doesn't talk all that much during this liturgical moment). The result is reminiscent of Bill Moyer's TV miniseries about the book of Genesis, in which people of various backgrounds-- not just theologians-- were invited to converse about the meanings they teased from scripture in a manner that calls to mind a conversational version of the Jewish midrash (thus Moyers writes, I think quoting a rabbi, in the preface to the book version of the TV series). From what I've seen, conversation about the scripture reading is usually animated but polite, with people contributing their thoughts in different ways according to their personalities-- verbosely, with thoughtful deliberation, and with humor. Even after only two such sessions, I've seen plenty of disagreements, but these are handled maturely by all participants. It's obvious the group members are comfortable with each other; I'm glad.

While discussion of scripture is not in itself special, replacing a sermon with such a discussion is, at least for me, rather novel and a great change of pace. While I doubt such a format could be used with large numbers of people (the morning group seems to be around ten people, with minor fluctuations), it's not a bad idea for pastors looking to conduct smaller-scale services.

UPDATE: Pastor John tells me he doesn't deserve this much credit. I understand why he says this, and have added this update so that his objection, so to speak, will be on record, but I appreciate his project and think he and his wife deserve a great deal of credit for the good they're doing here.


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