On November 18, 2014, at the urging of a parent, the property committee at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts voted to do something quite radical for the time: we voted to create a “Pray & Play” area in our sanctuary where kids could feel comfortable and where young families could worship together with age-appropriate activities. While it might have been the combination of bean bag chairs, ELWs, foam blocks, and books about Martin Luther and Ella Fitzgerald that initially caught a newcomer’s eye, what most people seemed to notice first was that we had removed two adjacent pews in the center of our sanctuary to make room.
Just two years later, we removed the remaining forty-six pews.
In 2017, the people of Zion Lutheran Church, recognizing that our 1892 Neo-gothic sanctuary was overdue for a major investment, completed a $1.2 million project that transformed it into a renewed place for worship and community. While this included adding accessible routes and restrooms, replastering and repainting the walls, replacing all the lighting, and even adding air-conditioning, what most people (still) seem to notice first is that we removed all the pews and replaced them with chairs.
This is my testimony to you: it feels good to worship in a sanctuary in which the seating is more than twenty percent filled. The singing is fabulous when the community worships close together. Need space for a baptism and six confirmations at an Easter Vigil? Just make the open space between the font and the chairs larger. Need space for piano, string bass, and drums for Jazz Vespers, our monthly evening prayer? Just move the altar table back a few feet.
Because nothing is nailed down, Zion Lutheran Church has been able to host public concerts, theatre rehearsals, interviews, annual meetings, farmers markets, community dinners, and events for children and youth. In our first year, over twelve thousand people have walked through our doors for worship or a community event in our Common Room, the name for our sanctuary.
Last year, at an indoor farmers market we host, I was asked with some amount of disbelief, “Wait a second—is this still a real church?” (I replied with an emphatic “yes!”) But I’ll admit that there have been more than a few Sunday mornings when I’ve arrived to worship in a sanctuary that looks more exhausted than sacred. First, I gently remind myself that I don’t always look so good, either—and I remember that in our worship, our hearing of God’s Word, our praying, and our singing, not only are we renewed to serve our community, but so is this Common Room. For that, I give extra thanks and praise.
At LSM, a good part of each day is spent in music rehearsals. I was involved in band, orchestra, jazz band and a brass quintet. Each rehearsal was about an hour long; this could sometimes be tiring as I was a trumpet player. But due to this intense rehearsal schedule, I was able to build my endurance and become a better trumpet player.
University in Valparaiso, Indiana. This continuing education event was a joint venture between the 
The group learning sessions were very informative and helpful. My church offers contemporary worship services so I found the inclusion of sessions related to presenting music in that type of setting to be a great addition. Throughout the event, participants were given access to a wide variety of materials and resources related to music leadership and worship planning. There were several that were of interest to me, such as the 
Another conference? Having served churches as a Minister of Music for more than forty years, what could this event offer other than a break from the day-to-day routine of church work and an opportunity to meet or reconnect with colleagues? From my first step into the Chapel of Resurrection at Valparaiso University, the answer was that this was going to be an exceptional experience. The concurrent programming of this ALCM event with the last week of the Lutheran Summer Music program united the hearts, hands, and voices of several generations of musicians. From the opening Eucharist, through Morning Prayer, Night Prayer, and the hymn festival, these LSM students lifted our worship to new heights as we together praised God through the gift of music.
It has been my experience that a camp worship service can be very powerful. But as I write this, describing these worship experiences, I recall the words of one of my predecessors here at Mount Luther. Early in my tenure as director, I sat in the kitchen of Don and Betty Mincemoyer who served here in the 1960s. They related the camp mission to their staff in this way: “Every thought a prayer; every action a worship experience.” Having the chance to give expression to what the whole creation yearns to do—praising God from whom all blessings flow—is what we continually do every day as we swim, make crafts, eat meals, hike, and play games. Camp is a place where we continually make our thoughts a prayer and our actions a worship experience. And because of that worship, both on our lakeshores and in other spots of God’s creation, lives are changed as Jesus Christ is encountered in new and exciting ways.
Sy Shipman (back row, third from left) worships at St. John Lutheran Church (Windfall) in Cardington, Ohio.
