My Spiritual Home

My Spiritual Home
Deacon Larry Rieger

I came to the CEC in middle age, forced to leave my prior denomination when they abandoned scriptural authority in pursuit of social relevance.  My journey was one of searching the marketplace for a liturgical church using a traditional Eucharist of the Lord’s presence, with a desire also to find a church where I could enjoy worship music.  I was a lifelong liturgical Christian, and very comfortable with the liturgical framework of the Catholic/Anglican traditions. I was comfortable with the Lutheran service I looked at, but desired weekly Eucharist.  The CEC provided the liturgy and weekly Eucharist, but I was very unfamiliar with, and a little discomforted, by the Charismatic part of worship, which I had experienced in lesser degrees in times I had worshipped with more evangelical friends.  My friends who welcomed me to the CEC assured me I would be more comfortable over time, and I also took a small group teaching in the Charismatic part of worship, and was soon at home.

What I found most appealing about the CEC was that not only did I feel very much at home in a theological orthodox faith well expressed within a familiar and comfortable liturgy, but I found the continued reliance and teaching of Holy Scripture, together with spiritually uplifting praise music filled a spiritual void within me.  Yet even as all my traditional spiritual desires were being met, I was both challenged and intrigued by those around me who were enlivened by the various expressions of the Holy Spirit. I could see others being fulfilled and comforted by the Holy Spirit, but I was not feeling it myself, and I knew that I wanted it and needed it.

I had just been in the CEC for two years when troubled times came to the denomination, and my own small parish, which had more than tripled in size in two years, dissolved.  Again I looked for a new home, but every place I went, there was a sense of something missing. After several years of drifting from denomination to denomination, I was able to meet with some other former members and reconnecting with a CEC bishop, started a new CEC parish, which has now doubled in size in the last two years, and is looking ahead.

Although I am still in a relatively small parish, and have been asked why I don’t move to a larger church with all the facilities and activities, that I would like to see, I would not want to journey away from the CEC again.  There is a rightness to my being part of this group, and a spiritual fullness in our worship and fellowship. In travel to where there is not a local CEC church to worship in, I always find a significant aspect of my worship missing regardless of which other church I visit.  The full three streams of worship which the CEC provides has returned me to the complete authentic worship that characterized the undivided Christian church, and I have found my spiritual home.

Deacon Larry Rieger
Saint Michael and All Angels CEC
Williamsburg, VA

The Liturgical Stream

By Fr. Jeffrey Welch
June 9, 2019

Our Liturgical/Sacramental Stream Comes from Jesus

    Our Liturgical/Sacramental “stream” comes from Jesus.  “Christianity is Christ” John R. W. Stott wrote. Who Jesus Christ is (the Eternal Son of God who became human without losing any of His divinity, in one Person); And what He has done for our salvation and the redemption of the world makes Him our Lord.  He is head of the body, the Church and Lord of all time. (*1)

    So our faith in Jesus calls us to turn our time over to the Lord and follow all the events of His life each year.   We prepare for His prophetic birth (Advent), celebrate His birth (Christmas), His revelation to the world through His signs and wonders (Epiphany), His temptation and fasting for us in the desert (Lent), His death and resurrection from the dead (Palm Sunday, Passion week, Easter), His Ascension to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father (Ascension-tide ) and His pouring out of the Holy Spirit ‘birthing’ the new covenant Church (Pentecost), which is His body, the Church.
 In the same way we in the ICCEC follow Jesus as His disciples have from the very beginning, Acts 2:42 (ESV) And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  “The prayers” were the traditional set prayers of the Jews, now focused on God through Christ our Lord.  Thus the Liturgy we use each Sunday is literally “the work of the people” in service to God; And the “breaking of bread” is the Holy Communion Jesus instituted in the Upper room just before His passion. Likewise we follow Jesus through the whole ‘arc’ of our living, receiving His outward and visible signs and seals of His inward and invisible work of grace in our hearts and lives.  These holy events are called the seven sacraments.
We enter the Church washed by Holy Baptism (*2). We’re strengthened with the spiritual food of His body and blood (*3), for our daily and weekly life (The Eucharist or Holy Communion).  When we stumble into sin and need a cleansing by Jesus through Confession of our sins He gives us that grace(*4). When we grow into adulthood we declare faith in Jesus Christ from our hearts by the laying on of hands in Confirmation and receive gifts from the Holy Spirit (*5).   When we are sick or need healing we ask the elders (priests and bishops) to anoint us with holy oil and Jesus heals us by His will (*6) and to help prepare us for the transition to heaven at the end of our lives (termed extreme unction). When we are called to marry, husband and wife come together in Holy Matrimony and receive grace to live being “fruitful and multiply”(*7).  If we are called to serve Christ in Holy ministry we receive special grace through Ordination to represent Christ to the Church, administer His sacraments and protect “the flock.” (*8).

Our Liturgical and Sacramental “stream” of worship is simply our Church stepping along side the earliest Christians and walking by faith onward with them, as we all follow our Lord Jesus.

 

 

*1 (Ephesians 1:19-23)

*2 (Matthew 28:18-19 and John 3:5-8)

*3 (John 6:51-58)

*4 (John 13:3-10 and James 5:16)

*5(Acts 8:14-17)

*6 (I Peter 2:24-25 and James 5:14-15)

*7 (Genesis 1:28 and Ephesians 5:21-33)

*8(Ephesians 4:11-12 and 2 Timothy 1:6 and Acts 6:5-6)