Worship, Gotham! begins

Yesterday Adam and I went to church. Yes, I took the guy who I hope will someday become a rabbi to church. And he liked it!

Some of the highlights of what he wrote over at Worship, Gotham!

To kick off Worship, Gotham!, Christian and I thought that it would be best to start with a place that was familiar to at least one of us. We decided to go to Trinity Lutheran Church, a Lutheran Church in Astoria, Queens that Christian and his wife regularly attend. Part of the thinking in choosing this church was that since we already had a network of people that we knew around us, hopefully I would feel somewhat comfortable even as I, the religiously ignorant Jew, found myself in the middle of a traditional Lutheran service.

. . .

As for the actual theology that was expressed in the service, to be honest, I am just as confused about Lutheranism and Christianity now as I was before the service. In terms of general Christian Theology, I am still confused about the basic idea of the Trinity. Shortly before the service began, I had the opportunity to read the Athanasian Creed (which is accepted as truth by all Lutheran Churches and by many other Christian Denominations) for the first time and this only confused me more. Apparently, Lutherans, and Christians generally pray to three distinct concepts that are in fact one. The Creed states:

We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.
For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another.
But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty.

. . .

I assume the idea of how three beings are actually one has been flushed out by countless theologians. The general idea seems to be that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all distinct, but yet at the same time are one. How this actually works out is still confusing. This might seem like basic Christian theology, but my knowledge of Christianity leaves a lot to be desired (the correction of this problem is one of the main points of Worship, Gotham!).

. . .

In all, even though there is still a fairly large amount I don't know about Lutheranism, I think today was a success. First, I got to meet a bunch of good people. Everyone at Trinity was amazingly welcoming and friendly. Before I even entered the Church, when I was standing outside trying to figure out if I was in the right place, a member of the congregation came up to me and made sure I was OK and assured me that the doors were open and I was welcome. When I got inside, this friendliness continued. Within minutes after I walked in and sat down three people came up to me, introduced themselves, and welcomed me. Secondly, I got to experience my second Lutheran service and my first traditional Lutheran service (the first involved electric guitars and a rock band and was a totally different experience).

Lastly, I managed to get out of bed before 1 pm on a Sunday, which is amazing for me. All in all, it was a good Sunday.

So we have to work out some theological kinks but that's what this whole Worship, Gotham! thing is all about. Read his whole piece here.

Next up, more church! Especially for me. As part of this journey I'm probably going to be pulling double church action on Sundays. In the morning with Wendy and later in the day with Adam. Hey, you can never get enough God.