Evening Prayer

I attended evening prayer at a historic Episcopal church last week. 

Up to that point, I’d only attended protestant evangelical churches regularly. All politically right-leaning. All formulaically the same. The jump from Southern Baptist to nondenominational to Church of God was more of a skip—all three embracing the same core values and worship styles. 

The high jump from my pentecostal home church to an episcopal parish felt like cheating. Cheating on my church. On my small group. On God. 

Interior of the Episcopal church during a Christmas open house

Walking into that church was like walking into the throne room of heaven, pin-drop silent but vibrating with life and longing. Only a handful of other people were at the Wednesday night meeting, scattered around the sanctuary’s stiff, wooden pews. 

I’ve experienced liturgy a few times in my life, mostly Lutheran. A stack of printed booklets sat on a podium in the narthex, and I grabbed one before stepping into the terra-cotta auditorium decorated with hand-painted arches and Tiffany stained glass. 

A harpist plucked at her instrument’s strings from the altar, each tone echoing through the cavernous, wood-ceilinged hall. The music filled me slowly like drops in a bucket, each strum rippling through my heart. 

I read through the liturgy before the priests took their seats on the stage. And while everything was straight from scripture—worshipful, reverent—my spirit balked at the stillness in the room.

There was no keyboard rumbling in the background, only the creaking of the hardwood floors and the crackling of the candles. Nothing to distract me from focusing on God and prayer and how tarnished I seemed in comparison to the gold glittering from the altar. 

The white robed priests took turns reading the liturgy. The audience joined in every few lines, and we stood, kneeled, sat, and stood again as we worked our way through the preparation, the word, the prayer, and, finally, the eucharist. 

By the time the woman broke the bread and the man blessed the cup, the wall around my spirit had shattered. The priest recited the invitation:

This is the table, not of the Church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and for those who want to love him more. So, come, you who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often and you who have not been here long, you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. Come, because it is the Lord who invites you. It is his will that those who want him should meet him here. 

I wanted to meet the Lord there, at that altar, blue like the caribbean and adorned with gold-painted stars. Meet Him despite my failures and my wavering faith.

I took the wafer and dipped it in the wine and let it melt on my tongue as I stepped back to my pew.

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The discipline of evening prayer satisfied my need for structure and routine that I haven’t found in the evangelical church. But there’s also beauty to having an old-school pentecostal approaching you during Sunday service to pray for you with very specific, preternatural knowledge.

No, I haven’t become Episcopalean, but I’ve gained a greater appreciation for liturgy.

For contemplation.

For silence.