Before I begin, I am making some schedule changes, and I have come to a decision concerning my church-going activities. I do intend to join the UU Church, and as such, I will be going every other Sunday (the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month). However, because this project is important to me, I will continue visiting new churches every other week. The weeks that I attend the UU, I will also attend various worship centers that offer Friday and Saturday services (like the Muslims, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish communities do). If I run out of those, I will try to find Protestant churches that have Sunday night services, so I intend to have a new entry every week regardless. This has been too much fun, and way too informative to just walk away from.
On to the review proper: the church I attended this week was purely by random chance. Near Washington Avenue Green River Road Christ Church Church of Christ
This was what I would call a “cold visit”. Most of the time, I am somewhat familiar with the doctrine of the church I am attending, and I attempt to make preparations. I had no clue what the United Church of Christ’s doctrine was, so removing my earring and my Darwin fish from my car, I played the conservative role…just in case. I think I would have been safe keeping these things as they were, because I was quite surprised with what I was presented with.
The United Church of Christ is, essentially, a moderate Christian church. This particular one (Christ’s Church) has been around for about 50 years. In the packets I took from their information booth, churches are allowed to marry homosexuals if they so choose and they can preach, but at the same time, they believe in Bible-based healing, practice confirmation, baptism, and yet they don’t hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible. The reason this doctrine befuddles me isn’t necessarily because it is doctrine-based, but because, once inside the church, I found it fascinating who actually believed it.
When I first entered the church, it was blind luck that I came in on time, because I didn’t see the worship times. They were apparently on the sign, but the font was quite tiny. Once I entered, I was warmly greeted by one of the elderly folks at the information booth, I was given directions to the sanctuary by another elderly folk, I was asked for information about myself by yet another elderly gentlemen, and I was given a schedule by…another elderly gentlemen. Upon being seated in the sanctuary, that’s when it hit me. I hesitated to make the judgment until the service began (I sit in the back so I can see who attends), but I would say that 95% of the congregants were over fifty years of age. This, pardon the pun, was an old church. For me, when someone says “50+ year old Christian”, I don’t automatically believe them to be tolerant of homosexuals, nor do I know many who don’t take the Bible literally. Hence, my fascination was with the types of individuals represented in the church.
As I sat down, the elderly couple in front of me introduced themselves, as did the interim-minister (Dr. John Charles) and the music leader. I must digress a moment in stating that I will only name the leaders of the church, or whomever gives the message, as they place themselves out there anyway as the spiritual leader, though I keep all other names anonymous. The folks here at the church were very friendly, and they seemed really, really, really, really – and must I repeat? – really, excited to see someone my age come through the red doors. During the “passing the peace” portion of the service – where everyone greets each other and shake hands – it lasted for almost a full ten minutes and, I being fresh meat, shook a lot of hands. These congregants were very welcoming. I love elderly folks because they really do give, and if you treat them with respect, and make them laugh, they’ll love you forever. I think I made a good impression on them, seeing as about five minutes into talking, this little old man smiled, pointed at me: “I really like this guy!” They were fun.
The church itself was beautiful. I didn’t anticipate it being so. If you can imagine a spacious Catholic church, stripped of all its icons, replaced with beautiful plants, with a large 50-foot cross behind the pulpit, with a tranquility fountain, beautiful ornamental lights with fake gemstones, and a corner to broadcast a PowerPoint presentation, you’ve imagined what’s beyond the red doors. It was spiffy, but I was disappointed that in spite of all of its beauty, the seats were virtually empty when the service started. This sanctuary seats 200 people easily – I’d say there were 75 at maximum there.
The worship service was pretty simple, and the closest I’ve had to what I was raised with (so far). There was a modern, opening video, used to call attention to the front and gather everyone in. It was a basic “we are God’s people and we can change the world” type of message – quite user friendly. The PowerPoint was the main focus of the entire service, sans the actual message, as the PowerPoint told you exactly where you were in the service. The minister preached from his notes, but a very simplified version was placed on the PowerPoint, which was relatively helpful. Music-wise, the songs leaned towards traditional. I only cracked open a hymnal once to look inside, but I never used it, as they placed the words on the screen. A lot of the folks sounded like they didn’t know the songs very well (and we sang some I don’t remember ever singing) but I think we would’ve been s-o-l if it weren’t for the lyrics on the PowerPoint. You could hardly tell we were singing – 75 timid voices don’t compete well with a large organ.
There was an opening prayer and a lighting of two candles to signify the start of the service. We sang a few old-fashioned hymns, had a moment of prayer for concerns, a scriptural reading with three seemingly unrelated scriptures being read, and a moment of special music delivered by the music minister. I’ll go ahead and compliment him right now – it was beautiful. He sang “You Raise Me Up”, a song that, when I heard it, unless a professional musician was doing it, usually sounded like someone was grating my ears with a cheese grater. This particular version was a mix of Celtic, acoustic, and piano – somewhere between Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On and it honestly sounded like Andrea Boccelli was performing it. This gentlemen’s voice was amazing! I wouldn’t say he was given a “gift from God” due to my non-belief, but this man could sing. I happily applauded when he was finished, something I personally do not do unless applause is merited.
The message itself was…eh. I know, that’s not a great articulation of my thoughts, but let me explain. The three unrelated verses (one about the Exodus, one concerning Jesus walking on water, and the third concerning Paul’s conversion) were strung together in the message. The sermon was titled “Do You See What I See?” (Reminds me of Christmas…and Gremlins …) The entire message could be seen as an emotional delivery of a relatively rational subject; the “relatively rational” part I’ll explain in a bit. Essentially, Dr. Charles explained how God is present in all situations, and he did it very enthusiastically. He was quite the dynamic speaker. But, the whole point behind the three stories – those in the stories saw God’s power, they believed, and they changed their hearts. He admitted that these stories won’t do anything for you if you don’t believe them, and he was tottering on the idea that “seeing is believing”, but he didn’t quite say it. I mean, I would be convinced of someone’s divinity if they walked in water with the technology available in 1st century Judea, but he cited personal testimony (Paul coming face-to-face with Jesus, which occurred…depending on how you define “face-to-face”) and anecdotal evidence of God’s glory.
All in all, the entire sermon was centered on what these people saw, which was interesting because he didn’t mention faith once; hence it was “relatively rational” (if you allow personal testimony to count as evidence). He used sight and observation as evidence of God’s glory, albeit he was citing the Bible, and anecdotal evidence. I do like that he at least removed faith as an element as much as one might have been able to while working with the same materials. I also got a kick out of a story he told concerning his first preaching experiences. He told us of a woman he used to know who basically stated that she believed Paul was a “male, chauvinistic pig”. Consequently, she hated almost all men, but I was chuckling to myself because I, as an atheist who has read the Pauline epistles, pretty much agree with her assessment. The message was, like I said, “eh”. I will grant him that this message was a great one for a person like me to listen to. If I had the metaphorical “open heart”, the lack of critical skills I try to employ, and I was searching for fulfillment of my life through God and Christ, I would have latched on to this message and may have found it quite convincing.
After the sermon, we sang a few more hymns, took up the offering, and extinguished the candles. I complimented the minister on his message, thanked the elders I could find for making me feel welcomed, and left.
Now, one of the benefits of knowing people in a church is the ability to ask questions. I had loads of questions, but not knowing anyone and not wanting to seem overly nosy for asking questions, I’ve had to peruse the packets and gain what I could from their information they offered me. This church is above average in the information it offers, but I think it could have been presented better. I picked up eight packets on different subjects – marriage, conformation, stewardship, scripture, working for justice, etc. The doctrine was all fairly-well laid out here, but I think it would have sufficed to combine then all into a booklet. It was kind of a waste of paper. The bulletin, though, shined, because it had a listing of all of their activities, the times, the important players, how the services were conducted, the 2012 weekly budget, etc. It was quite thorough…and I like a church that tells you how it spends your money.
I find that the number of events for the number of parishioners is above average as well. If I assumed there were 100 people coming to this church regularly, I would say that the events are over-proportional to their weekly numbers. There were the usual Sunday School classes (for adults), nursery, preschools, and choir practices. There’s also a program called “TOPS” (no idea what it is) and Line Dancing on Monday. There are also opportunities to donate to a shelter, a picnic coming up in September, a rummage sale, as well as a Family Christmas Market. I think, to be honest, that this church, if most of the folks were as old as they presented themselves to be, is their life-blood, simply because all of these activities were centered on older adults (I didn’t see any evidence of the existence of a Youth Group). I grew up in the type of church where EVERYTHING an individual did was tied to the church. So I understand. This is an assumption, but it’s one that I think is well-founded.
All in all, I enjoyed this church. Like most of the churches I will go to, I will feel welcomed, and I did so here. This place of worship had its strengths, its weaknesses, but I would compare it to a Christmas tree – even the smallest, least impressive tree can still be beautiful from all the ornaments placed upon it. Beautiful church, friendly people, decent selection of activities, but virtually no young people, no youth group/minister, a mediocre message, and…well…it could have been better. Here’s the breakdown:
- Congregation
- Friendliness (1/1)
- Message
- Topic Interest (.6/1)
- Inspirational Value (.5/1)
- Clarity (.6/1)
- Applicability (.6/1)
- Worship
- Content (.6/1)
- Audience Participation (.5/1)
- Outreach
- Community Involvement (.7/1)
- Variety of Activities (.9/1)
- Information
- Accessibility (.7/1)
Total = 6.7
No comments:
Post a Comment