During the past few weeks, Ruth’s sermon theme of The Lord’s Prayer provided the seed for a new inquiry project in WorshipArts. In my mind I imagined where the discussions might lead us and looked for materials that could contribute to thinking together about the concepts of hallowed, of heaven on earth, of forgiveness – and of course, sins, debts, and trespasses! 🙂
Instead we stalled at the very beginning – The Our Father versus The Lord’s Prayer! In our group we have more than one family who honor and practice the different faith traditions of both parents’ upbringings, and suddenly the “title” of the prayer as well as its ending brought forth lots of animated discussion about not only distinctions between Catholics and Mennonites, but the varieties of religion in general. “How many different kinds of churches are there?” and “Why does someone want to know another religion?” and “What do they celebrate?” and “How do they pray?” and “Why is the person in front called a pastor in the Mennonite Church and a preacher in another church?” and “Why can’t a girl be a priest?” and more!
It was quickly clear that we could use some help in exploring these questions and so we decided to invite guests with ties to other denominations to visit our WorshipArts time and allow us to interview them in person. Of course we won’t be able to get all of our questions answered, but surely we will put this one to rest… “Can a person of a different religion come to a different religion’s church?”
And seems like that’s a pretty good starting point for promoting new understandings in any setting.
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