Worshiping with Miracles

So this past Sunday I led my first worship service at the Hospital.

Interfaith worship services are interesting. Given that I am in Atlanta, GA, it is usually safe to assume that most attenders will be Christian, but that does not eliminate the possibility of others attending as well. We have patients of all faith backgrounds, and for many, our Sunday morning services are the only worship venue they can reasonably get to.

The lion's share of the congregation on any given Sunday consists of folks from the Rehab wing, people who have been around for awhile, sometimes months, and have built a sense of community. They come, often with their families, and quite regularly with their nurses. Sometimes they'll come down with a physical therapist who will do their work while the patient sits there. Most of the equipment is modular, and so you'll have beeping monitors, IV drips, suction machines...

All in all, its a pretty interesting worship venue.

It is in the midst of all of this that the chaplain must put together a worship service that is accessible to people from any faith background, but still a meaningful act of worship. You tend to go back to basics for this. The Hebrew Scriptures are a good place to start, given that they are revered by two faiths and honored by three. Prayers speaking to the power of God and of Love are usually strong to. The Hebrew Shema knocks the requirement out of the park. You talk less about the face of God and more on the power and love of God as it relates to the context you're standing in.

Oh, and you can't just wing it, basing what you say on who shows up. Sunday services are run by the on-call chaplain, and it is entirely possible that you could get called to the Emergency room during the service. If that happens, one of the music therapists (your musicians) will take over in a pinch, but she needs to know what to do next, and her training wasn't in liturgy. It all sounds like a nightmare to plan. It did to me. And it was.

But then I got there, and I found myself talking to people who are, all of them, in the midst of crisis. They are hurting, tired, and scared, and in that context they sought God, God's love. They sought not only prayers for their conditions but to pray for the conditions of others, which for some of them was the only power they had. They did it happily, joyfully, and worshiped God together, regardless of what those around them thought of when presented with the word "God." They were hurting, they were seeking, they were finding. They were miracles.

And I got to lead 'em in worship.