Caitlyn Fong - Church Visit #3

Church Name: Uptown Baptist Church

Church Address: 1011 W. Wilson Ave., Chicago, IL 60640

Date Attended: October 2, 2016

Church Category: Different Ethnic/Racial

1. Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

The most obvious difference between Uptown Baptist and my home churches is the ethnic/racial makeup of the congregation. At home in Boston, I grew up going to a Chinese church and back at Wheaton, I attend a mostly white church, whereas Uptown Baptist is majority African American. In addition to the congregational composition, another difference was the presence of a choir. This may have been a one-time thing because Wheaton’s Concert Choir was performing that Sunday as a guest, but I am not used to choirs singing during worship service so that was a newer experience for me. On the other hand, there were a couple similarities to my regular church context. At Uptown Baptist, they read the Scripture passage together as a congregation and I grew up doing this at my home church back in Boston too. Also, the pastor opened and closed his sermon in prayer, which is the same as what I experience at the churches I have regularly attended.

2. What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

The most interesting piece of the worship service to me was that Uptown Baptist has a verse of the month that the congregation tries to memorize together. The verse relates to the sermon series they are going through and they read it in unison before the sermon. I found it very appealing that this is something that they do together as a congregation because it unifies them through a shared activity. It also gives them something to take away from the sermon series and use to relate the sermons to their own life experiences. In addition, I enjoyed how Wheaton’s Concert Choir sang songs that either were about or took texts from Revelation, which connected very well with the sermon.

3. What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

For me, the most challenging part of the worship service was the length of the sermon. I am used to sermons being around 20 minutes, maximum 30 minutes, and the sermon Uptown Baptist’s pastor gave was almost 50 minutes long. He shared a great message and I did take away some points that really made me think, but it was hard for me to stay focused and I found myself disengaged several times throughout the sermon.

4. What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

I cannot remember hearing a sermon about the book of Revelation, especially not one that directly related Revelation to the life of Jesus Christ. Pastor Michael Allen spoke on Revelation 1:7-18 and he explicitly connected 15 things mentioned in the passage to aspects of the character of Jesus. In my opinion, Revelation is a difficult book to grasp, so I really appreciated how Pastor Allen dissected each point and gave the implications of what it means for our understanding of who Jesus is.