Adoration services are underway at 9:00PM on Tuesdays. This service consists of an hour of singing, prayer, preaching, meditation, Communion, ministry to those with needs, and fellowship. It’s completely understandable that many at Hopwood have only heard tales of these Tuesday nights when our little church is filled with worshipers from neighboring campuses and churches. Some of us look back on our college years and wonder how it was we were able to cram all sorts of study and activities into the late watches of the night, and still get up for class the next morning! Ah, Youth!
What is so different about Adoration services?
Well, we sing…a lot! The music is both contemporary and worshipful; contemplative, but often powerfully moving; and always designed with faithful Christian theology in mind rather than what the Christian music industry is selling this week. We sing for about 25 minutes after we’ve gathered; we sing our confession of sin; we sing as gifts of bread and wine are offered for our communion service; we sing while we give thanks and while we are communing; and long after we’ve been dismissed, one can find people still singing!
The Gospel is read aloud and is preached, but in a short enough amount of time to allow for a generous period of silent meditation on what we’ve heard. (Imagine a rather full Hopwood with not even a floorboard creaking!) Over the last year we’ve been blessed with great preaching from seasoned area preachers as well as younger faces from Emmanuel and Milligan.
Matthew 13:51 reads, “Therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”(NRSV) We hardly ever tire of hearing the same ancient Scriptures when they are read in church, but probably because we meet them in a new setting each time. Likewise, at communion time we dig deeply into the rich tradition of the Church and give time-tested language and action a new and contemporary setting at Adoration. The experience has been described by someone as “having one foot in the third century, and the other in 2006”—and, yes, no one thinks that should feel altogether natural!
After the last song, we begin to part ways—but in three waves. The first goes reverently (but happily) downstairs to the kitchen where there is Equal Exchange coffee brewing for students who have a few more hours of study or play left in them. The second, less cheerful but satisfied, moves outside to the parking lots, libraries, and dorms. But a third group lingers prayerfully in the dimmed sanctuary, as some wait for an opening at one of the four sets of chairs up at the front where they can pray or speak with a minister. God bless Tim Ross and Ben Lee and the others who give of themselves so graciously!
Why is it so late at night?
Originally, a small group of students from Milligan, Emmanuel and ETSU thought it would be good to have a service where everyone from different churches could gather “in one accord and in one place.” After-school activities forced the time later and later, until everyone agreed on 9:00. However, it wasn’t very long until word got around that “the Spirit was doing something on Tuesday nights at Hopwood—we’re not quite sure what.” Pretty soon we began to see local pastors show up regularly, and then a few curious visitors, sometimes from hours away. Most of them have had the same reaction: “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
It is unrealistic to expect that our young Hopwood families can venture out at 9:00 at night after a long day’s work, and when the kids are ready to be put to bed. And we don’t advise people taking to the roads whose night vision has dimmed over the years. Perhaps we might all figure out a solution to this together someday. But we do want to extend a large invitation to anyone who is interested and able to join us. Adoration is no longer for college students anymore. It has crossed the generation gap and the denomination gap, and we’re hoping to bridge even more. Josephus Hopwood, we hope, would be proud.
~DB
