So What Faith

Greg Smith

My Visit to New Covenant Christian Church (#2296)

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This morning I was a first time visitor at New Covenant Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma City.

About New Covenant

New Covenant is an open and affirming congregation in Northwest Oklahoma City that is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Since 2021, the Rev. David Wheeler has served as pastor.

Currently, the congregation offers once service of worship in its sanctuary each Sunday at 10:45am. This service is livestreamed on YouTube. Additionally, they gather for Sunday school at 9:30am.

Welcome

I arrived on the church campus 12 minutes before the service. I noted ample parking all around the campus, including clearly labeled spots for guests near the main entrance to the sanctuary. After parking just a bit further away, I was greeted by a friendly woman as I entered those doors. She recognized I was new, offered some words of welcome, and showed me how to scan a nearby QR code to get a digital copy of the worship bulletin. As I entered the sanctuary with my hands free I was immediately reminded of my most recent blog post: When Worship Was Folded in Half (or in Thirds).

Nearly everyone who had arrived before me opted to sit in the back pews or in chairs situated behind the rearmost pews. As a result, I walked down the center aisle until I found the first vacant pew with an open aisle seat.

In the nine minutes before worship, I was welcomed by two parishioners and the pastor. Amazingly, the pastor recognized me despite us having not ever officially met.

Worship

The 68 minute service followed a fairly traditional Disciples’ liturgy, which was available via the digital bulletin. For those not interested in utilizing that resource, everything needed to fully participate was projected on two large screens at the front of the sanctuary. And, even more helpfully, every element of the service that had even a small chance of being unfamiliar or confusing for a newcomer was preceded by a brief verbal explanation.

The service began with a warm, inclusive, and authentic welcome by Callie Rivera, Director of Family Ministries. She served in a role that functioned much like an assisting minister or liturgist. Additionally, she left the sanctuary during the sermon to lead a children’s program returning with those children for communion.

Welcome Slide (photo by Greg Smith)

The music was lead by a praise band and included a broad array of easy to sing congregational music that aligned with the congregation’s progressive theology. While a choir wasn’t present today, it is a part of the life of New Covenant. This was easy to discern since the service included an announcement about their upcoming rehearsal to which existing and prospective members were invited.

Worship View from My Pew (Photo by Greg Smith

The service included an interactive pastoral prayer featuring petitions and refrains followed by the use of a sound bowl.

Callie Rivera, Director of Family Ministries, Leading the Pastoral Prayer (photo by Greg Smith)

The sermon was atypical in several ways.

First, rather than reading the two chosen Scriptures from the lectionary offerings (Micah 6:1-8 and Matthew 5:1-12), Rev. Wheeler started with an extended story, relating his recent experiences of traveling to Minnesota with a group of Oklahoma City area clergy to join some 600 other clergy who responded to an invitation from MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing). While I and many others in the room knew much about this recent response to ICE, I didn’t know the details of the pastor’s personal experience.

Rev. David Wheeler, Pastor, Preaching (photo by Greg Smith)

Second, it was unusual in that it interrupted an already scheduled sermon series. Rather than simply preach the next planned sermon in a multi-week series, Pastor Wheeler chose to go in a different direction, noting he will combine this week and next week’s topics into a single message next week to get that series back on track.

Finally, it was memorable. While most churchgoing folks have heard hundreds if not thousands of sermons, many can only recall a handful. The timeliness of today’s message combined with the pastor’s radical transparency about his recent lived experience suggest this will be both memorable and impactful for many in the congregation.

New Covenant follows the Disciples of Christ practice of communing whenever they gather for worship. Here again, their tradition and methodology was explained. In this case the knowledge was helpful as a single plate was passed containing both the bread and the wine (juice). Those seeking to commune were invited to take one cup with a piece of bread and one cup with juice in it as the plate passed down their aisle, to hold the elements in their hands, and then to partake together as a sign of the congregation’s unity in Christ.

Pastor Wheeler, Presiding (photo by Greg Smith)

The service continued with an offering before concluding with the benediction. Notably, no plates were passed. Instead, folks were directed to other ways to give.

Kudos

After serving ten congregations, I can say with confidence that every time I made a last-minute decision to change a sermon, it turned out to be the right one. I am equally aware of the moments when I tried to address urgent and timely issues in worship without allowing the sermon itself to fully engage the topic, when I should have brought the sermon and the other elements of worship into deeper conversation with one another.

Worship, Right Side of Center Aisle (photo by Greg Smith)

Pastor Wheeler pivoted beautifully. His message, “An Open Letter to Christians About ICE, Immigration, and the Way of Jesus,” calls those who follow the way of Jesus to live with integrity in every aspect of their lives, especially when confronted with injustice.

Powerfully, Pastor Wheeler shared that upon returning home he learned ICE had killed another American citizen, Alex Pretti. This act of violence occurred just blocks from where Pastor Wheeler had walked. It reminded me that I, too, had been nearby not all that long ago (see Visiting the George Floyd Memorial).

Additional Oklahoma Worship Experiences

My experience of worship at New Covenant today was my first time to worship in Oklahoma this year and my twelfth time in the last three years. My prior experiences include: