St. Andrew's Presbyterian in Richmond
St. Andrews Presbyterian

This last week and again this week I am providing pulpit supply for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Richmond, ON. What a great congregation. I ended up getting some of the information I needed to prepare the service midway through last week, which made for quite a busy week. This busyness was compounded by the realization that Presbyterians really work to put together their liturgies!

In many of the traditions that have a detailed formal liturgy there are service books that let you quickly put together the various prayers and elements of the worship service. I have a deep love of formal liturgy, although I must admit I do always want to marry the ancient and formal liturgy with the contemporary and intimate worship music of my own tradition. I also appreciate that when you are invited to lead, throwing them off their liturgical rhythm is not the way to bless the congregation. So I appreciate that when I go speak in some formal contexts they already have lots of liturgical resources to draw on – not so with the Presbyterians it seems. I did grab a Presbyterian hymnal this week so I am ahead of the curve. This congregation has a distinct order of prayers and readings that are crafted week by week. It is really quite something, in fact I found it quite spiritually encouraging putting the liturgy together last week.

Yesterday I simply read through the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary and have been letting them sit with my spirit as I went through my day. This morning I am starting to frame out the prayers and order of service so that I can get some help choosing hymns that will be familiar and meaningful. I might teach them a new song this week, there seems to be space for that, but we’ll have to see what fits into the service.

If you are in the West Ottawa or Richmond area and would like to experience a really warm and inviting congregation why not come an join us this Sunday.

I grabbed the picture from St. Andrew’s website. The church looks tiny from the front, but as I pulled into the parking lot there is a huge addition on the back. The sanctuary was rebuilt in the late 1800s and has tonnes of charm.