Kari DeHaven – Church Visit #3

Church name: Armitage Baptist Church
Church address: 2451 N. Kedzie Blvd. Chicago, IL 60647
Date attended: April 6
Church category: Different ethnic or racial demographic

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

The structure of the service was nearly identical to that of my regular context. We began with about three worship songs, the sermon ran for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, and ended with offering and prayer.

I did not notice many children in the church. I saw one infant and a few junior high aged students, but not many children. At my home church, children are running around in the lobby while their parents talk with one another before and after the service. Similarly, it did not seem as much of a community based church as my home church, as most people did not seem to know each other. That is also just an observation from one Sunday, so it could be that I just did not observe the ways in which the church may be community oriented.

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

The first song in the worship set was sung in both Korean and English as the church is intentionally multiethnic. When I went to the Urbana conference two years ago this is how the musical worship at the conference was set up to model how multiethnic worship could be done in a church. Until this morning I had never seen this practically done, and it was something the whole congregation was accustomed to.

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

I felt a bit disappointed because the musical worship seemed to be the only part of the liturgy that was reflective of the church’s objective of being intentionally multiethnic. After we sat down and the congregation filled the pews I noticed that all of the African Americans sat on one side of the congregation and most other ethnicities sat on the other side. There was a clear dividing line down the middle of the pews.

I also found the preaching style incredibly disorienting. The preacher gave his sermon with a fire and brimstone kind of vigor and was running across the stage and making large gestures. My guess is that I typically I find sermon style most challenging because I grew up in the land of Dallas Theological Seminary so all of the churches I attended there had similar teaching styles. The pastors tended to just stand behind the pulpit and give the three point sermon.

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 service illuminated the beauty of multiethnic worship and demonstrated how that is part of the heart of God. I love in the book of Revelation where John speaks of seeing people from every ethnic group worshipping together, and the musical worship served as a means of reawakening how excited I am to participate in that in heaven. It’s similar to how Pentecost is a reversal of the Tower of Babel in that the nations are coming together to worship God. Ultimately, worship is about God and not about us. I think also that the way in which we choose to worship reflects something about the way in which we view God. When we participate in multiethnic worship we are engaging in something that is part of God’s heart that is not typically within our own.