St Ignatius Church

January 25, 2009 9:00 pm
St. Ignatius Parish, 255 Stafford Street Winnipeg

I cheated a bit on this one. Back in grade 9 Christian Studies class we were given the assignment of going to a church of a different denomination than our own; I chose St. Ignatius. I can't remember which of the five Sunday services I attended (or maybe I went to the one on Saturday...), but I thought it might be interesting to go back.

I chose the Sunday night service for two reasons: one, I wanted to sleep in and two, it's touted as the "contemporary music" service, which always catches my eye when it's advertised in a church setting. I've said it before and I'll say it again, churches need to start getting with the times and looking at alternative means of worship.

St. Ignatius is a beautiful, old-style building with an arched ceiling and a great, cathedral-like atmosphere. The place was full, which surprised me. Probably 300, 350 people there. The age range was also impressive; the younger generation was very well-represented, there were lots of families and the older folks were out in force too.

The service followed what I assume was a traditional Catholic mass format, except the musical interludes were played by a small band up at the front. A guitarist, a keyboard player whose left hand was patched through as a bass and three female singers led the music. It was good stuff, not really what I'd call "contemporary" but it the songs were meaningful and the lyrics were displayed on a large projection screen so everyone could follow along.

Something I distinctly remember from my visit in grade 9 was a whole lot of spontaneous call-and-response (eg. 'the Lord God be with you' 'and also with you'), of which I caught about a quarter. And naturally there were apparently standard cues that had everyone crossing themselves. I missed them all.

I'm not sure which Pastor was presiding, but I'll assume it was Pastor Gerry McDougall, St. Ignatius's senior pastor. He was an older guy and opened up with an anecdote about baseball in his youth that left me scratching my head a bit. He actually managed to tie it in to the story of Jesus and the apostles, particularly Saul/Paul, and then spun it around and made it relevant to us today. The gist of it was that the apostles were ordinairy people like us, called to serve God and one another. Therefore each one of us can also do amazing things for the glory of God. Cool message, well delivered.

After offering and communion the band closed things off with a couple nice tunes. One in particular caught my eye, called "Seize the Day." The internet tells me it's by a gal named Carolyn Arends; give the lyrics a google. They're kind of neat, and (again, excuse my prejudice) not really what I'd expect kicking around a Catholic church. Definitely contemporary.

Anyhow, I'd be interested to see what the Sunday morning "Organ" service is like at St. Ignatius. And it's clear that they're onto something with this Sunday night thing; not too often a church (with five different services!) pulls in a full house on a normal Sunday in January.

http://stignatiusparish.ca/