Today, the choir that I am in, the Lutheran Acappella Choir of Milwaukee, sang at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago for their Sunday service. The experience was really wonderful as I had never sung in a venue of that size and stature before. However, the service itself was quite weird. While the church is technically an Episcopal church, the church has an interreligious center and prides itself on its openness to all religions. While that in and of itself is perfectly fine and wonderful, it doesn't really make sense that the church is Episcopal as it really seemed to mean nothing. Besides that, the guest "preacher" was a theology professor at the college who basically just read his dissertation about Christian witnessing, or more appropriately, what he called Christian witnessing. It was so hard to follow and was very scholarly and had no place as a sermon in a church service. If anyone had come to that church to learn about Christianity, they would never come back. To make the service even more weird, the service followed a very traditional layout with liturgy, scripture readings and hymns. It was an odd mix of a very traditional Christian service with a much more secular sermon (if you can call it that) and communion practices.
Despite the oddities of the church service, we had a really good time and I really enjoyed walking around the church with Jared and noting all the cool architectural features and engravings. The church was the size of cathedrals in Europe, so of course I loved it!
What I Learned: While the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel says it is an Episcopal Church, it only is so in name.
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