Mark Sawyer Church Visit #2 - St. Sabina

Mark Sawyer

Church name: The Faith Community of St. Sabina 

Category: Different racial makeup

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

            The church was almost exclusively African American - I was one of three or four white congregants in a congregation of one or two hundred people. One of the biggest differences between my regular context at a PCA church was the venue itself. The church is located in a cathedral that used to hold a largely white, immigrant population. It is very ornate with high ceilings and beautiful art, as one would expect from a cathedral built in the early 1900s. The service was fairly liturgical, as it is a Catholic church. The message as given by a priest originally from South Africa, and he interacted with his congregation as he spoke, entering the pews to refer to people or talk to them. We did sing some of the same kinds of songs that I would sing at my home church, though they were adapted for a choir of sorts (5-6 people). 

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

          I felt so welcomed at St. Sabina. When I entered the church, the women greeting the arrivals gave me hugs and welcomed me with a "Happy Sunday" (such a good hug that I smelled like her witchhazel for a long time after!). During the course of the service we were welcomed by most of the congregation during the fellowship time, with people making a point to come over and make contact with us, even if it was just a handshake or a hug. Furthermore, we were asked to introduce ourselves briefly at the end of the service, and one of the ladies sitting next to me leaned over and made sure I knew when the service was going to be next week in case I wanted to come back! This welcoming atmosphere was not just directed at me as a visitor. The whole congregation was very welcoming of each other.  

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

            To be perfectly honest, I felt fairly comfortable at the service in regards to the flow of the service, how easily I was able to worship, etc. I did not feel disoriented. The most challenging aspect was the offertory time, because I think everyone was expected to give, as we were dismissed by rows. I and the other Wheaton students with me did not get up, as I had not brought any tithe money. However, it was interesting to observe how they presented their gifts. Rather than passing around a basket, everyone came down the center aisle and dropped their gifts into a large basket. In addition, families would gather around the offering basket and give a quick prayer over their gift. This was convicting and encouraging for me - I rarely think about or pray over the money I give to my church in such an intentional way.

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

          The importance of beauty in a worship service was apparent at St. Sabina. For example, the building itself drew one's eyes upward and towards the beautiful stained glass windows and towards the cross over the altar. However, the sanctuary was also decorated with pieces that were clearly not part of the original design. These pieces may have seemed out of place for a traditional, white, Catholic church. A neon "Jesus" sign hanging from the ceiling. Palms and plants. A very natural looking wooden altar. A painting of a black Jesus with hands outstretched. These pieces really beautified the space, but in a way that was distinct to the congregation. In this way, beauty drew me into worship differently than I would have worshiped had I been in my white PCA church.

Jenna Herskind - Church Visit #2

Church Name: Immanuel Anglican Church

Church Address: 900 W Wilson Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Date Attended: 10/23/16

Church Category: More liturgical

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

I walked into Immanuel right as they were finishing singing a song that I didn’t recognize.  A small band led worship, a man with an acoustic guitar led with a keyboard and one other guitar behind him. Father Aaron Damiani was dressed in full robes, and after the song finished he turned towards the congregation and introduced a passage of Scripture from Isaiah. A young woman sitting in the congregation suddenly stood up and began to recite it from memory.  She moved towards the front, and as she finished, another member of the congregation stood up to pick up where she left off in the passage.  The entire scripture passage was acted out by over 5 members of the congregation. When they were finished, a second Scripture reading from Luke was performed by Fr. Damiani, with a chorus of “Alleluia” before and after a large book (presumably the book of Luke) was handed off with great precision. After a message from a guest speaker (though I’ve been there twice now, and both times there has been a speaker other than the father, so I wonder if that’s actually the norm), we took communion together (“for those who have faith in Jesus Christ and have been baptized”), and then sang several more songs before departing.

Unsurprisingly, the physicality of this service stood in direct contrast to my regular worship services. At one point the entire congregation received a cue invisible to me, and all bowed their heads. Children didn’t have to be told by their parents, and they too bowed. I was caught off guard, naturally, but appreciated how embodied faith was in this Anglican church. In my customary church context, we do two motions: we sit, and stand.  At Immanuel there is dancing as members acted out the Scripture, there was crossing of one’s self, there was bowing, etc.

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

I was (again, unsurprisingly) most drawn to this difference, the physicality of the service.  How can faith be purely in our minds? I resonate with criticisms of an evangelical emphasis on orthodoxy while orthopraxy goes unattended to. While often we talk about orthopraxy as the action-y stuff of social justice, I also think it’s simply what this Anglican church does each week: move your body as your read Scripture, raise your voice as a critical part of the sermon. Doesn’t it make sense that the movement of your body while you listen to Scripture would actually shape your soul (pulling from class on 11/2 now).  The same way I believe that binging on Netflix shapes your soul, and choosing to walk on the other side of the road from the beggar shapes your soul, of course bowing upon speaking the words of the Bible and moving your body with the cadence of the words shapes your soul.  I am so untrained in this; it does not come naturally. But I wish it did.

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

Encountering the moments in which I didn’t know what to do when everyone else did threw me off. There were moments in which everyone else seemed to know exactly where to put their bodies; I found myself behind even the children in front of my as I tried to keep up with patterns of congregation contribution (whether vocal or bodily). I also wonder how involving yourself so fully in a worship service contributes to self-centeredness during worship.  I, of course, don’t think this about every person in that room, but in the recesses of my own brain I found deep insecurity as I moved about and spoke aloud and found my person, my body, heavily invested in the service.  Does liturgy that involved senses make one more prone to thinking about how they’re perceived by the outside world, or is this a personality trait that I brought to the table?

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

I think the Anglican church, and perhaps just more liturgical churches in general, are meaningful in their emphasis on congregation participation.  My neighbor heard my voice over a dozen times, whether singing or speaking or reading Scripture, and I heard my neighbors’ voice too.  We were integral parts of that which was playing out in front of us--without our responses, the service would have ceased for a moment, or at least had awkward silence.  We were expected to, and invited to, contribute to the experience of our neighbors.  The critique I level of churches I’ve grown up in is that we are not required to bring anything to our worship services: I can show up, sit through a service, and then go home without really contributing anything to the service. I am not necessary for the service to continue. At Immanuel, if there is no congregation, around 50% of the service would be silent!  There seems to be a direct connection to the unity of the church, the “body” nature of the church, the necessity of each member of the church raising their voice and body.  We need those leading worship, those speaking, and those in the congregation for the service to be a worshipful one.

Basye Peek- Church Visit #3

Basye Peek- Church Visit 3

Church name: Immanuel Anglican Church

Church address: 900 W Wilson Ave., Chicago, 60640

Date attended: 08/21/2016

Church category: More/Less Liturgical

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

            I attended the Sunday service at Immanuel Anglican Church, a church plant of Church of the Resurrection here in the city. The worship space itself is pretty different to any church I’ve regularly attended, as the church meets in the open, sunken auditorium of a local high school. Most of my churches have had their own established buildings or permanent spaces within larger buildings. Immanuel is only a few years old, and that also likely contributes to the less established nature of their space. The service is Anglican, and follows a traditional liturgical service structure. I’m from a non-denominational background, and both of my parents are Southern Baptist, so the liturgical style of worship is fairly foreign to me. The starkest differences would be the communal prayer and proclamation, the weekly communion, and the intensely structured nature of services, as seen in the detailed program bulletins given out and relied upon (quite heavily for me personally) throughout the whole of the service.

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

          I find a great deal of beauty and merit in liturgy. There is certainly value in repetition: whether or not at the moment you are speaking the words you truly feel as though you agree, forming the habit of affirming beliefs that hold true no matter how you feel at any particular time. Communal repetition also ought to bring a degree of communal closeness, as you affirm with your voices that you all believe the same basic elements of our shared faith and thus are confirmed in entering into deep, faithful community with those around you. I also admire the liturgical tradition of incorporation a number of the senses within worship services. While most of my background centers around the individual, heart experience without the “distractions” of beautiful cathedrals or incense or sitting and standing, I find it beautiful and life-giving to be reminded of God’s majesty, his grace, and our insufficiency through physical reminders like standing and kneeling.

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

            Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the worship service at Immanuel is the opposite side of the coin of liturgy. While it can be a beautiful, communal habit of proclaiming truth to participate in liturgy, there is also an element of insincerity that can be present in liturgy. In having everyone speak that same words simultaneously, there is little room for personal reflection or responsibility to truly measure what you are saying. Instead, it is far easier to simply read the words off of the program while paying little attention to their meaning or significance than to truly weigh whether or not you mean what you are saying. Similarly, when taking communion, there is a habitual nature of taking communion each Sunday that can translate from a beautiful weekly confession and reminder of the reconciliation of our sins through Christ’s sacrifice, to a mindless habit to save face with your congregation. It was also disorienting to be in a high school with mostly African American and Hispanic students (as seen in the murals that surrounded the auditorium), but in a congregation that was almost exclusively white.

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

            The worship service that Sunday centered around praying through the Psalms, and actually entered into an interesting dialogue with the practice of liturgy. The pastor discussed the importance of praying the Psalms, of seeing how the Psalmist experiences sweeping emotions of lament and joy, sorrow and victory, and that although our feelings are inconsistent, there is merit in praying through the Psalm’s not in spite of our feelings, but in concert with our diverse life situations. This struck me as not only a case for the Psalms but for liturgy, and was well illuminated by the unfamiliar practice of speaking liturgy that morning.

Basye Peek- Church Visit #2

Basye Peek- Church Visit 2

Church name: Church of the Beloved

Church address: Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611

Date attended: 09/25/2016

Church category: Different Racial/Ethnic Congregation

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

            I regularly attend Church of the Beloved, which is a church plant that meets in the auditorium of one of the Northwestern Graduate School buildings just across from Lake Michigan. The church is predominately Asian American, and draws college students from Northwestern, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, and Wheaton.  The starkest difference between my regular context and Church of the Beloved is the racial make-up of the church and the homogenous age range. I have traditionally attended large, non-denominational churches that are predominately white and of mixed ages, with lots of families. Church of the Beloved is almost exclusively college-aged, and the majority of its congregants are Asian American.

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

          The actual style of worship is pretty similar to my own background, as the church is a fairly “modern” (i.e. non-liturgical, contemporary worship). The worship service doesn’t feel all that dissimilar to what I’m used to, and the environment is fairly comfortable. The main differences that are extremely appealing are the length of the service and the style of sermon. Church of the Beloved meets for over two hours, which contributes to what feels like a more active, involved, and invested church body, rather than a group of congregants checking off an obligatory Sunday service. There are certainly quicker places to do so. Additionally, because of the age of the congregation, David Choi (the pastor) really tailors his messages to my age group, and as such they are extremely relatable, and more readily applicable.  

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

            One of the main challenges that I face at Church of the Beloved is the negative aspect of one of the things I enjoy most- the fact that most of the congregation is my age. While it certainly feels comfortable and often times easier to get connected to the other members of the church, it is unfortunate that there is a lack of spiritually and physically mature elders, leaders, mentors, and role models within the church. The lack of age diversity certainly contributes to a lack of diverse opinion and engagement with issues that may strike different age groups differently. I have found that some of the most robust moments of learning come from listening and engaging with perspectives different to my own, especially when it comes to opinions influenced by age and generational difference. Elders have a great deal to teach us, and a great task in humbling us as twenty-somethings who often believe we know best, and Church of the Beloved certainly lacks those elder-figures.

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

            One element of theology that is well illuminated for me at Church of the Beloved is the effect that our racial or ethnic upbringings have on our interpretation of the gospel, but not the fundamental truths of the gospel. Pastor Dave often preaches through a distinctly Asian-American lens of understanding, telling stories about being expected to fulfill the “model minority” stereotype and how that effected his view of salvation. Race often comes up in his sermons as both beautiful and divisive in a way that predominately white churches rarely engage.