Church Visit #3- Marissa Jensen

Church name: The Unitarian Universalist Church

Church address: 4848 Turner Street, Rockford, IL 61107 

Date attended: April 6, 2014

Church category: Church that different from your Theological background

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

Wow, this service probably couldn't be more different than my regular context. It was mainly a service about love and caring for one another. There was a lot of poetry and a lot of focus on a chalice that was lite at the beginning of the service and then blown out at the end. There were several songs, but none had any specifics like names. There were a lot of generalizations. But there was a fairly wide mix of people who spoke although there was one main reverend. The church was pretty small, which I really liked, and it was extremely comfortable. It was a very relaxed service. There were a lot of jokes and light hearted conversations. This is a different “vide” than what i'm used to coming from a mega- church.

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

The most interesting thing for me was definitely the focus on morals that are included in Scripture, but they were discussed not as a direct part of scripture. There was a lot of beautiful poetry and a lot of interesting stories relating to the earth and animals. I thought that a lot of the poems and stories if not all of then did reflect Biblical moral but, nothing was directly from the BIble, or even from God. Everything was attributed to “the Holy”.

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

I was very disoriented by one main thought that the church held extremely close to. Their main foundation, from my understanding was to be open to suffering in the world and how that conflicts with the beauty of the world, yet they are not open to embracing conflicts of politics and religion and different flaws in the church. For example, the reverend told her spiritual journey and she chose to leave the catholic church because she thought that what was taught was not relatable to her life and her had a hard time bringing together her life and the teachings of the church. Because of this she chose to leave. But my question is that without embracing some of the messy realities about the fallenness of the church how can we actually grow closer to the truth and what is right? What is the foundation then? I felt like the church service was consistently walking on eggshells trying not to offend anyone. And I honestly respect that I honor that, but if we aren't willing to embrace conflict to know what to really believe, then what are we standing for? I was just personally very disorientated by the fact that the church was encouraging the Unitarian Universalist church to be a place to be open about suffering and beauty in the world and how they fit together, yet that theology was never applied to the church or religion. When conflict arose in the church, the reverend chose to leave. I thought that the church held so many good morals and had such a great community of people who were genuinely open with one another, yet so much was still missing.

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

This church very fully embraced honesty and openness in their community. Although this was never related to Scripture, I think that it is a very good moral to hold within a church. It was very refreshing to go to a church that was so focused on being able to ask for help and to express problems and short comings. I think that this was a really important part of creating community in a church. I think that seeing this being done successfully in a church made me more optimistic about how other churches can embody that in their communities.

Also just a funny side note: my fiancee and I accidentally sat in the choir in the back of the church....and it was only a choir of five. It was hilarious and kind of awkward, but an excellent experience! Haha!