Sabbatical visits:Clear River Community Church, Centerville, VA

What was your first impression as you entered?

Clear River Community Church meets in a middle school. After all the “theater church” venues I’ve seen recently, I was looking forward to not meeting in a theater. And remembering how Church of the Beloved (Charlotte, NC) had so wonderfully adapted the cafeteria space in an elementary school, I was eager to see how Clear River Community Church would creatively use whatever space they had.

Parking was easy, the entrance clearly marked, and a visitors’ information table was immediately available in the lobby. Several people greeted us and gave us information. The way to the Sunday School was marked with a happy, colorful banner, but the way to the worship gathering was not apparent. We took a guess, and ended up in the right place.

Unfortunately, the middle school is equipped with a theater – and there we were again. It's not the church's fault -- they have to use the space they get. This middle school theater exhibits most of the same strengths as the professional theaters -– no set up required for seating, and a large screen for projection. But it had the same weaknesses as all the other theaters: it is clearly designed for the show rather than for building community (a weakness shared by most church buildings.) The darkness impedes interaction with others, the theater is designed to augment the electronic sound system while diminishing ambient sound. This is a good thing for theaters, but a terrible thing for churches: congregational singing is absorbed into the walls, so one feels like one is singing all alone.

On the other hand, it was nice to see some older people and a lot of little children. Clear River obviously intends for their worship to be ingenerational: the children were present for the singing, the prayers, the scriptures and the communion. The sermon followed the communion time. Children were dismissed for their own classes while the sermon was the adult offering for Christian education.

How long was the service?

Because the school’s air conditioning system was not functioning – on a particularly hot, humid day in August – the worship leaders announced several times that the service would be short and sweet today. It was an hour and 20 minutes. This did not seem too long to me, at all, but it made me wonder. Was the service actually shorter than usual, or did they forget to cut out whatever they intended? I didn’t ask, but I was amused. In any case, it seemed the right length to me: they gave good attention to all the needed parts, at a nice leisurely pace.

How was the service structured?

Singing: 15 minutes
Prayer: 10 minutes
2 Scripture readings: 4 minutes
Communion meditation: 10 minutes
Communion / Singing: 15 minutes
-- Dismissal of children / regroup – 5 minutes
Sermon: 20 minutes
Closing prayer: 1 minute

What did you like best?

The creed, communion, the sermon.

The sermon was very conversational, very real, very personal. It was an honest, theological reflection on the meaning of genuine faith, given the difficulties of contemporary life and an invisible God.

The communion was informal, but well focused and thoughtful. They obviously had studied the historic Eucharistic western rites. Later, when we asked, they said they had adapted much of their worship from the Book of Common Prayer.

What did you dislike?

The prayer time would benefit greatly either by creating a structure for participation, that is, some liturgical structure, or by shortening it. (I would have preferred the former.) As it was, with but one person saying prayers aloud, extemporaneously, we found it very difficult to remain engaged. We failed, and were frankly relieved when it was over.

Although they had adapted freely from the Prayerbook, they did not seem to understand the organic flow – the why of the shape of the Western rites. It made a lot of sense, given their approach to Christian education, for the sermon to follow the communion. But it seemed very odd to say the creed (the congregation’s response to the Word of God) before the Word of God was proclaimed (through scripture and sermon). So for me, the order of worship seemed disordered.

What were its greatest strengths that you’d like to import?

Good preaching, and a great website.

If you were looking for a church, would this be it?

Clear River Community has a lot going for it. Although I admit that it wouldn’t the church I were looking for, it might be yours. If you live in Centerville, you should definitely give it a look.

What did you learn from this visit?

There are so many new church plants meeting in conference rooms, gyms, cafeterias and theaters, that supplying their equipment needs has become a profitable business. Clear River Community used some very interesting equipment acquired from “Portable Church Industries” (Click here for their website.) From my point of view, that’s very, very good news. Not that there is source for equipment – but that there are that many new church starts!

Is there anything else you want to say?

Two things:
First, on most of my visits to other churches during this sabbatical study, I have been accompanied by others. My wife has been with me on most visits, daughters on several, college students and another adult on some. On nearly all of these visits, my impressions were identical to those who joined me. This was not the case on this visit. Our impressions were quite surprisingly different from one another. I have no idea what this means.

Second, I was surprised at how disappointed I was when we walked in and saw it was in the school’s theater rather than some other space. It has become more clear to me than ever, while visiting these churches this summer, that the relational aspect of congregational worship is everything to me: the experience of connecting with God and the experience of connecting with God’s people. The program, if you will, the show, is of no importance to me at all. Put me in a room with some open, honest people who are hungering for God in community, and I’m satisfied. Put me in room alone, even surrounded by others, even when the preaching and the music are great, and I’m not satisfied at all. I don’t think my inner demand for relational connection, for spiritual community, is a matter of personal preference. I think that spiritual community is what church is. This is not all that it is, but spiritual community is at the core.

This is my opinion; I could be wrong.

The Lord be with you.