Philip Paek - Church Visit #3

Church name: Lawndale Christian Community Church

Church address: 3860 W Ogden Ave, Chicago, IL 60623

Date attended: March 30, 2014

Church category: lower socioeconomic demographic

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

Arriving at the church, I could already tell the neighborhood offered something that was completely different from the context of churches I was used to. Service was held inside the gymnasium of a health center, which was quite new to me in terms of venue. We entered down a ramp after being greeted with handouts of candy and programs from smiling faces. And the program commenced with worship consisting of gospel worship. Worship was probably the biggest different thing from my regular context. I was used to being led by a worship team in a front facing congregation, but the vocal leaders stood in the center of the room with an inward facing congregation while the band was almost hidden in the back of the room. I loved this as the entire service really had a joint communion feel to it as the congregation regularly engaged in the service. Ethnically, most of the congregation was African-American, and the soulful shouts of "preach" and "mmhmm" coming from around me was both a new experience and joyfully encouraging to listen to.

What did you find the most interesting:

Worship was the most interesting experience for me. I only recall really singing a handful of songs, but remember specifically noticing that each song went on multiple times even if it was just one chorus of a song being repeated over and over again. It really made me note the importance of the lyrics I was singing, and though I was not used to the gospel style and found it hard to follow along at times, felt extra engaged in worship than normal. In addition, I loved the fact that the band didn't take center stage. Serving on a worship team myself and having my own bad experiences with worship concerts, I loved how the focus was taken away from the music aspect of worship and was almost glad that for the first half of worship I couldn't figure out where the instrumental was coming from.

What was challenging:

Very different to my regular context of an hour-long service or so, the service held was about two hours long. This was probably the most challenging to me not because of the content of the message, but because in such a fast paced way of life today, I started to be unable to focus the longer the service went despite my best efforts. It specifically caught me off guard when I expected the message to be about done and the pastor mentioned that he was just done with his intro and going into his main points. 

What aspects of scripture or theology did the service illuminate for you?

The service really made me think about the importance of Church community. The congregation at the Church really was one of the driving factors of the worship experience in my opinion as they were engaged within the service through their positive outbursts and calls for the choir to keep singing. It was inspiring the way that it was a community of encouragement and laughter. From the choir, to the pastor, to the special service, everyone seemed to be working together in unison and really celebrating God together. It's an aspect of the Church that I feel is lost in larger congregation and the mega churches of today and even within congregations of similar size that I am used to being a part of I don't feel that sort of church unity.