Church at Tower Hill

Last Sunday, a number of our group attended Sunday morning services at the Royal Chapel at the famous Tower of London. This is an Anglican church. To me, that means it is a Protestant church that gets as close as it can to being Catholic, without actually being Catholic. (Ha.) The service was very structured, and very straight forward. Probably my favorite thing about the chapels and abbey's all over London is their choirs. I grew up in the Church of Christ, and we definitely don't do choirs. The choir at Royal Chapel was made up of adult men and women. There were probably around 15 members in all. They sang beautifully! 



I loved the reverend's message. He pointed out how much Jesus valued friendship. Jesus said... "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." He was saying that Jesus put friendship above romantic love. I think in today's society, romantic love is definitely valued more than friendship. Single college girls who aren't married by 20 have self esteem issues because the bible belt mentality has them thinking that romantic love is the best love one can receive. This isn't the case according to the reverend, and according to Jesus, and to me that's extremely encouraging. It's more than easy to doubt yourself (especially when it comes to marriage and things of that nature) when you are a single, twenty-something female. 


Communion took place while we were at the Royal Chapel. I did not participate for fear of making a fool of myself, as I am completely unaware of Anglican custom, but some girls who attended with me did, and they felt the experience was very enriching. It was a good experience for me just to see how everything worked. I found it very interesting that after communion was given (note that the recipients are not allowed to hold the cup, and the bread is placed into their mouth) the reverend placed the cup and bread underneath a piece of fabric and placed that in the center of the table for the remainder of the service. 



Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photographs inside the Royal Chapel. It is a very pretty building.