Personal Narrative: My Trip To St. Teresa's Episcopal Church

For this second experience paper, I went to St. Teresa’s Episcopal Church with a mom I know from my dance studio. I didn’t know what to expect before I walked inside the church, and was wondering how different it was going to be from the first church I went to. We walked inside the church and there were people at every doorway welcoming everyone, and handing everyone a pamphlet with the. Then we walked inside the chapel where there was rows of chairs with a hallway in the middle leading to a small stage with a stand with 4 candles which were lite before the service started. Behind the stand was a a cross with Jesus crucified, and two bouquets of flowers. When the service started, music was played while the reverend (who was a lady) walked in followed by a man holding a bible above his head covered in gold, followed by a younger girl (who I surprisingly knew) holding a a staff with a cross of the top. The service started by a hymn to praise the God of Abraham, followed by other prayers and songs. During the prayers and songs we had to stand up and sat only when the reverend told us to. A lady came up to the stand and read the story of Moses from the book of Exodus. At the end, a prayer was said. After, someone came up to the stand and lead a a sort of prayer, where they said a phrase and the
people inside the church would read the next phrase all together. Just about the same thing was repeated many times, where we had to stand up say a prayer, and sing a song, and then sit back down. The story of Moses was told twice but the second time was slightly different. About half way through the service the reverend and walked down the aisle, followed by the man and the girl holding the book while music played. Everyone turned towards the book as it passed. They mentioned the passover and the last seder.
They had a silver cup under a silk cloth on a table in the front of the church, which they uncovered while telling a part of the story of the last seder. The reverend poured red wine into the silver cup. After that they then broke a circular shaped cracker (I’m not sure what it was exactly) over the cup and then broke it in many pieces. The reverend then ate a piece and passed a piece to everyone of stage, which they dipped into the wine and ate. Row by row, everyone stood up and went to the front of the stage where they handed each person a piece of the cracker and dipped it in the wine. after, everyone went back to their
seat. There were two times where I didn’t know what to do, however, the mom that I went with explained it to me. One time everyone stood up and started hugging and shaking hands. Another time was that everyone just started holding hands, and because I’ve never gone to church I didn’t know what we were doing. One thing I did notice, compared to the first church I went to, is that there weren’t many small children, so during the service it was much quieter. Overall, the experience was interesting. It was a much more formal service than the previous one I went to, so it was interesting to see how different it was. Personally, it is not a religion I am really interested in, however everyone was nice and welcoming.