Mercy Seat Blends Traditional with Contemporary

Nate and I headed to Mercy Seat on June 22nd along with Margo Decker-Mingo and our friends Aimee and Joel Pakan from Tangled Blue.  It was a great night of worship and fellowship!  Here are some interesting things we observed:

1. Mercy Seat worships in a school building that has been transformed to serve many functions. Monday through Friday the building is used by a school that works with autistic children and a food shelf. On Saturday and Sunday, four congregations worship in the building.  Each has service at different times or on different days, but all share the same sanctuary.  It was wonderful to see the building used in so many different ways.
2. The service was traditional in structure.  We followed the traditional liturgy order, but the music used was all newly composed. The music was very meditative and repetitive and it had a rock feel to it.  
3. Holly Hansen--a member of the band called The Zoo Animals-- led all the singing while also playing lead guitar.  Her band was made up of acoustic grand piano, bass guitar, and drums. 
4. Each month, a different local musician is commissioned to compose the music for the liturgy following the traditional order of worship.  Even though the music is contemporary, the service still felt traditional in many respects.  
5. No video projectors were used.  The service space was very simple and those who chose to take communion (all were welcome) could choose to take communion by intinction, common cup, or single serve cups.  Communicants also had the choice a wafer or a piece of bread.  

We walked away feeling filled with the spirit. We also had a new perspective on what it means to blend tradition and contemporary worship elements together.  

Our evening ended at Keegan's Pub with fun fellowship around good old Irish brews, awesome pot roast, fish and chips, shepherd's pie and the FIFA World Cup.  We had a wonderful evening!

Gina and Nate