Worship at Glendale
Safety and Glendale’s Ongoing Plan and Protocols
The group that has been assessing the COVID situation and our needs as a congregation offers some updated thoughts for our consideration. COVID vaccination and natural infection/exposure have achieved a level of immunity in the population that makes masking and other non-pharmaceutical interventions less crucial. Our use of masks during the height of the pandemic and the early days of vaccine availability has been important in providing a caring, supportive environment. Now that persons and families have had time to access vaccines and to assess and respond to their individual levels of risks and comfort in interactions with others, we can relax our mask-wearing expectations. Masks will continue to be available for use; all in attendance are encouraged to make your need for distance known to one another.
Thank you for being a caring community of equality and grace as we have, as a congregation, worked together to provide as much safety for as many as possible during this challenging season.
If you’d like to participate on Zoom, please contact us.
Worship
Worship at Glendale is one of the great ties that bind us together. We value warmth, engagement, movement, diversity, music, silence, cohesion. We would love for you to join us at 10:30am on Sundays to add your voice to our voices as we sing and pray and speak. We use a printed Order of Worship with words and responses printed.
We follow the Liturgical Calendar, also called the Church Year, along with many other Christian traditions. Starting with Advent in late November, we trace the life of Jesus through Christmas and Epiphany, Lent and Pentecost, then the life of the church through summer and fall. And like other churches whose worship has a fairly fixed form, we use vestments and banners, candles and bells, silence and litanies to connect us with the larger, global story of Jesus.
During special seasons, we have special services. Often during Advent we’ll have a worship for people who are grieving during the so-festive holidays. There’s always a Christmas Eve Lovefeast in the Moravian tradition, an experience that embodies Christmas Eve, with with beeswax candles and Moravian buns and coffee and lots and lots of carols!) During Lent, we observe an evening service on Ash Wednesday and Holy Week services with footwashing and communion on Wednesday evening and a Holy Friday evening service. We often recognize opportunities to worship in specific and special ways on more contemporary special days like the birthday weekend of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Earth Day, National Coming Out Day, Thanksgiving Sunday, and Trans Day of Remembrance.
Music is integral to worship at Glendale. We enjoy an acoustically wonderful sanctuary where our joined voices are wonderfully uplifting. We sing from the Chalice Hymnal, with hymns both ancient and modern accompanied by the piano. Our pianist leads us into times of reflection with classical music that engages our spirits in ways that spoken words cannot. Glendale’s choir provides anthems that carry the thematic emphasis of the day. (Incidentally, participating in the choir is one of the best ways to get involved with a small group in a new congregation!) Occasionally other instrumentalists—violin, djembe, guitar, dulcimer--join in our worship. One summer we were led by a string band.
In some seasons one of Glendale’s 3rd-6th grade children serves as an acolyte, bringing in the light for the Christ candle and taking it out at the end of the service to symbolize the movement of the congregation into the world, carrying the love of the Holy. The acolytes also serve as worship leaders by leading the congregation responsively in praying the Psalms. Glendale’s interns, affectionately known as “Glenterns,” lead in worship most weeks as they learn the art and craft of worship leadership. Congregants, too, lead worship through prayers, readings, and theme-driven stories.
On the first Sunday of every month, we celebrate communion together. Our usual method involves all who wish to participate (and everyone is welcome) coming to one of three stations to take bread and dip it into the cup. Children have a time of blessing with one of the ministers.
One does not need to understand these words or concepts in order to engage fully in worship at Glendale. Indeed, none of us fully understands the concept of worship—it is full of mystery and luminous moments that we can’t explain. Our hope is that you will come into the sanctuary and experience the community’s way of entering into the Presence of the Holy. The hour that we spend together there deepens our connection with one another, with the Holy, and with the world that we seek to love as God loves.
