Church Address: 3827 W. Ogden, Chicago, IL 60623
Date Attended: April 6, 2014
Church Category: Significantly lower socioeconomic demographic.
Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
The worship service was much more casual and down-to-earth than my home church. It was much smaller, about 200 attendees at the 11:00 service, and this gave the service a more intimate and authentic feel. The most obvious difference from my home church was the racial difference. This church was over 90% African American, with a few white people sprinkled in the audience. Also, the lower economic class was evident. You could tell, based on the public prayer requests and the sermon, that many people in the congregation were dealing with personal struggles that are foreign to many in upper class churches. I heard examples of drug addiction, monetary struggle, and health concerns that are less common (if at all present) in my home church. But these common struggles yielded a special unity and comradery among the laity, the degree of which is foreign in my congregation.
What did you find most interesting or apealing about the worship service?
There was a 15-20 minute time of prayer at the start of the service. There were two lines with microphones on opposite sides of the speaker's platform, and about 10 people shared public prayer requests. Contributors made themselves very vulnerable in front of the entire congregation, and it made things more authentic. The pastor wrote down the prayer requests and prayed through them afterwards. It was wonderful to see everyone engaged in prayer, united in submission to God. During this prayer time (and throughout the entire service), lay people would respond vocally to what was being said. That fostered a spirit of unity that is simply not present at many churches like mine. What was particularly notable is that the pastor knew his congregants by name. He understood his people, and he was gracious in the way that he took the prayer requests. His personal involvement in the life of his people gave him the credibility to submit their prayers to God.
What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
I have very little to critique of this church; I mainly took away lessons rather than discontents. One minor issue of concern is overcontextualization in preaching. I did not think the pastor overcontextualized in this sermon, but he did move pretty quickly from the biblical text at hand to the church context. He could have spent more time in Matthew and pressed a bit deeper into the broader context of the passage before bringing the message home. Overcontextualization is a temptation for many pastors, and is likely a greater potential obstacle in a context where the overall education level of the audience is lower. That said, the pastor did a great job of applying truths in the text to the lives of his congregants. It erred only slightly on the side of overcontextualization as opposed to disconnected abstraction, and that is the right side to err on.
I have very little to critique of this church; I mainly took away lessons rather than discontents. One minor issue of concern is overcontextualization in preaching. I did not think the pastor overcontextualized in this sermon, but he did move pretty quickly from the biblical text at hand to the church context. He could have spent more time in Matthew and pressed a bit deeper into the broader context of the passage before bringing the message home. Overcontextualization is a temptation for many pastors, and is likely a greater potential obstacle in a context where the overall education level of the audience is lower. That said, the pastor did a great job of applying truths in the text to the lives of his congregants. It erred only slightly on the side of overcontextualization as opposed to disconnected abstraction, and that is the right side to err on.
What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
Because of their lower socioeconomic status, the congregants in this church seemed able to relate better to the sufferings of Jesus. In his sermon, the pastor connected Jesus' sufferings with the trials that many of the audience were enduring. This allows them a kind of connection with the life of Jesus that is simply inaccessible to those who do not suffer. Certainly, there are real species of suffering at all churches, even the most wealthy -- but they still don't compare to the kinds of trials I heard firsthand in this service. Suffering can lead to a fuller apprehension of God's grace in our lives, and those who suffer less are deprived of those opportunities to experience God's grace in those ways. Those of us in more economically well off contexts have less of a personal attachment to the sufferings endured by Christ -- though all Christians are said to endure certain sufferings of Christ's. But it is more difficult to appreciate Christ's sufferings to the extent that one has not partaken in them.
Because of their lower socioeconomic status, the congregants in this church seemed able to relate better to the sufferings of Jesus. In his sermon, the pastor connected Jesus' sufferings with the trials that many of the audience were enduring. This allows them a kind of connection with the life of Jesus that is simply inaccessible to those who do not suffer. Certainly, there are real species of suffering at all churches, even the most wealthy -- but they still don't compare to the kinds of trials I heard firsthand in this service. Suffering can lead to a fuller apprehension of God's grace in our lives, and those who suffer less are deprived of those opportunities to experience God's grace in those ways. Those of us in more economically well off contexts have less of a personal attachment to the sufferings endured by Christ -- though all Christians are said to endure certain sufferings of Christ's. But it is more difficult to appreciate Christ's sufferings to the extent that one has not partaken in them.
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