In the summer of 2016 the congregation of St. George’s is practicing worshipping in a new space.  While construction is under way in the nave to make the space more flexible and accessible to all, we are worshipping in the parish hall.  It has been a good experience, discovering that ordinary space can truly be transformed into a worship space, and that freed from our pews, we move and interact in new ways, while still experiencing comfortably familiar traditions. 

As part of the transition and renewal, we are gradually being re-introduced to old furniture that has been refinished.  The lectern has lost its “wings” which were added sometime after it was originally installed in the sanctuary, and will serve in the remodeled nave as a combined lectern and pulpit, the one place from which the Word is read and proclaimed.  The credence table which we had been using as the altar in the parish hall has now gone to be refinished so we are using a simpler table built more recently for use in the back of the nave.

Most of the pews and the pulpit found a new home in an Indian reservation church, an arrangement facilitated by the company building the new chairs for the nave.  A few members also took pews for their own homes, and several pews have been refinished and shortened for other uses around our own church building.   

We’ve learned to receive communion standing around the altar platform.  The platform, which helped transform the parish hall into a practical worship space, we borrowed from Virginia Theological Seminary, where it was used in their interim chapel space while the new chapel was under construction to replace the historic building destroyed by fire.  The loan was brokered by our member and clergy associate whose “day job” is as a professor of church history at the seminary.  That physical connection with the nearby seminary reinforces our close relationship with the seminary over the years through an almost continuous succession of summer seminarians and seminarians gaining parish experience with us in their second and third years at the seminary, and of members of our congregation discerning a call and going on to seminary from St Georges. 

One of the challenges of making changes to the nave is honoring the many treasured memories accumulated over the years in that space – baptisms, weddings, funerals, celebrations, simple Sunday mornings with the family in the pew together.   At our parish retreat in April we shared stories and pictures of people and events in the nave.  Those pictures, and more which members have contributed, will be placed into a memory box that will be placed under the new altar platform, so that those memories will in a real sense be incorporated into the new space where they will mingle with the new memories being created there. 

The needlepointed kneelers which were designed to fit around the altar platform in the old sanctuary, will not fit around the new altar.  Each of the eleven cushions is marked with the initials of the woman who worked on it and the date of completion (1979).  All but one of the ten women who worked on the kneelers have been identified, using the collective memories of long-term members, including a few who have moved out of the area.  One of the women recalled the project.  “We all had to go through initial "training" with someone from the Cathedral needlepoint guild - made the little round basin pads (that I don't think were ever used - they were to go in the bottom of the offering plates).  The stitching on each of our pads had to be approved before we were allowed to take on a full kneeler - I think a few of those in training either weren't approved or decided not to continue.”  Brainstorming and researching the list of initials triggered many memories about much more than needlepointing.   

Change can be difficult, but it is also an opportunity to remember and honor those who came before us, and to prepare the way for those who will follow.  Those who went before us at St. George’s were forward thinking and adventuresome souls.  We look forward to moving into our new space in time to begin making new memories this Christmas.