Sunday, June 18 2006 St John’s Lutheran Church, Southbank

It was strange, walking through a shopping complex to reach a church, but on this night, that’s what I was doing. A web search for “7pm service” had shown me St Johns Lutheran church, nestled in the middle of Southbank. It was a wet night, and as I walked across the forecourt near the church, I was amazed at how beautiful it was. Sitting amongst corporate headquarters and millions of dollars of high priced shopping precinct was a traditional looking church, a round building with a 2 storey ceiling, a balcony around the edge housing the organ and extra seating overlooking the sanctuary.
I thought about Jesus, and the way he took his ministry with the poor, the prostitutes – the outsiders, and he took it to the temple, to the Pharisees, the tax collectors. This church was sitting here, and that night, quite literally, as a shining light amongst a world of greed. But also, amongst a collection of modern architecture, the forecourt leading up to the church still looked like a church. The new world versus the old.
Walking in, the place was packed, barely a spare seat, which I soon found out was because of a visiting school group from Concordia College in South Australia – they’d brought 3 choirs and a string orchestra group – but more about that later.
Somehow in my travels I seemed to keep finding myself in churches for Baptisms – which is great by me because I love getting to hear peoples stories. It was a person who had come to faith through St Johns involvement in Uni Campus ministries, and a great way to hear about the effectiveness of the church. It was also a communion service, and I was able to witness for my first time, a particular older church tradition, singing as the Eucharist is taken. It was very cool to be a part of, and the pastor made it clear that all who believed in Jesus were welcome to take part. The sermon was quite good, short and relevant, and the hymns sung were quite traditional.
But interspersed throughout the service, Concordia College had a hand in really making this visit an interesting experience. Two of the choirs performed gospel songs – as seems tradition these days for any gospel group, we had ‘Joyful, Joyful’ as rendered in Sister Act, and also a song called ‘He never failed me yet’. Both were uplifting, hand clapping foot stomping moments, a great experience of joy in worship to God that the whole congregation got into. And to conclude the service, the 16 piece string orchestra performed for us. The song was instantly recognisable to me – but not one I’d ever heard in church before – stairway to heaven, and gosh was it well played.

After the service I took a walk through the CBD to reflect – I’d been really amazed by the way this church had taken tradition and thrown in modernity. Their worship was a seamless mix of the two, giving respect to their past, but living in the now, and that seemed to fit perfectly with who they are and where they were located. I reflected in my own life that there are parts of my faith and my service that I should never let go of, and ways to do things that should stay the same – always – but that there should also be room to alter my ideas, and incorporate new ways of thinking about God.