It's All About The Storytelling

Last night, I went to the college chapel service.  Held every Friday at Regents Park, it precedes the weekly formal meal.

I knew I was in the right place when the guest preacher began his sermon.  "It's all about the storytelling," he said in his British accent.  I hadn't met or talked to him prior to that service.  And there it was--It's all about the storytelling.  He used this to introduce the topic of Paul's letter to the Galatians in which the apostle describes his coming to faith.  And in the process, the minister told some good stories of his own.

I've been thinking a lot about the stories that lurk behind the surface of things.  The backstories behind why places are as they are.  So as I go to worship at a variety of places during my sabbatical, I am going to be looking for the stories revealed by architecture and setting.

Regents Park is a Baptist college, so it is certainly not surprising that they have a chapel.  What was odd to me was that it was not the sort of grand ornate structure one sees at colleges in the United States.  Space of course is at a premium here, but even the location of the chapel tells a story.

As you come through the front entrance of the college compound, there is a small stairway to the right.  On a small barely noticeable sign on the wall is the word chapel with an arrow pointing up.  At the top of the stairs behind two doors is the rather austere room.  There are iconic paintings along the walls, but the room is certainly not ornate.

To enter the room is almost to be a part of a secret fraternity.  You wend up the stairs and have to mean to be there.  It is not the sort of place you wander accidentally into.  In many ways it is an upper room--hidden from the world.  The sense that some mystery may unfold seems palpable.

It is a very intimate space.  This is emphasized by the chairs not being in rows, but in two sets of parentheses facing a center aisle.  You can not help but look at the other people who are gathered with you.  I did notice with a silent chuckle that, like good Baptists everywhere, the worshippers filled the back of the two curves of chairs on either side first.

I was surprised that there were only 40 or so chairs prepared and that a fair number of them remained empty.  Obviously, chapel is not popular with the students and seems to hold only a mild attraction for the faculty.

The service used Celtic music, which was probably much closer to authentic than we would hear in the states.  The worship leader told us to sing it with a slow lilt, but that we ought not to sing it too slow for then it would be a dirge.

And that's the moment I was captured in, were these few of us gathered the pleasing lilt of the faithful or the dirge of the dying?  Were we at the work of living worship or the hangers on who kept coming until the song mercifully petered out?

I suppose we all stand in that moment whether we recognize it or not.  Even in big and overflowing sanctuaries the question is the same.  Will the faithful triumph singing with a lilt in the darkness or will they descend with a dirge?

At least for last night, we sang fast enough to make it lilt.