Church Review: St Marys – Hawera Anglican
I actually made it up on time and with energy this last sunday and (miracle indeed) the husband was up also so we decided to visit St Marys. The service started at 9:30am (a full half hour earlier than the churches we have visited in the past).
It was not a great first impression, the priest dashed past us and said “books are over there” (waved vaguely) and then said “we are having a crisis” and ran off. (literally)
As visitors we had no idea where “there” was or what sort of book we were looking for but luckily a nice lady showed up and gave us a book of common prayer and an order of service (without which we would have been lost).
The church building was beautiful and old, with stained glass and a traditional look.
Once the service started I realised that there was only 1 person in the whole congregation around our age, and she had 2 children.
The service was hymns from the bulletin, but it was incredibly difficult to know where we were at in the song, it appeared that hardly anyone was singing and no one knew where they were. The organ was played very nicely though.
I did love the readings, I don’t know why but I so enjoy it when different people just read straight from the bible. I love hearing the bible out loud in a service, without any commentary or additions, just straight bible is great.
Then later in the sermon the priest talked about the readings and that was great too. The sermon was quite interesting (about Jonah) but I did get the impression that the priest was teaching that the story was not to be taken literally. However later on the story of Saul being blinded on the road to Damascus and being healed by Ananais was definitely to be taken literally. I find that a bit hard, once you start saying one part of the bible was a metaphor or just a story how can you then say confidently that other miracles were real? How do you make that judgement call?
We did not partake of the Eucharist (communion), not because we felt terribly sinful but more because it was a shared cup and I was feeling that sharing my cold would have been a bit rude and the husband was afraid someone else would share more than a cold.
I enjoyed the relative silence while communion was taken, with the organ playing in the background and the lovely atmosphere just really helped me think deeply about God. I often find in the very modern loud services that there is no time to just think, or contemplate God or communicate with him privately.
The whole service was punctuated with “the service continues on pg 490” and we would scramble to find pg 490 in the prayer books to know how we were to respond, then the service would dash back to the bulletin. As a first timer it was hard to keep up.
This church was not my cup of tea. There were moments that I just adored but I would not feel comfortable there long term and doubt I would be able to fit into their community well. But it was lovely to experience something different as a change.
KG
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