Church Visit #1 - Andrew Sutton

Church Blog #1: Andrew Sutton - church visit #1

Iglesia de la Resurreccion New Generation Anglican Church
602 E. Geneva Rd., Wheaton, IL.

9/21/14

Different ethnic demographic

Question 1:

This Church was very different from the type of church I usually attend. The first main difference was that everything was for the most part in Spanish. The pastor,  however, did the service bilingually: first stating everything in Spanish, then in English. From what I understand, this is not the way they did it the last six weeks, because the pastor had just come back from his sabbatical and his replacement did not speak any English. I did not figure out if the way that this pastor did the service was normal for him, or he was doing it for me and the people I attended the service with. The praise songs were contemporary, usually Spanish adaptations of English songs (at the very least I kind of recognized them). They used liturgy and had readings, most of which was unfamiliar for me (and it was in Spanish). The pastor was very interactive, always keeping the congregation involved. It was similar in feel to the Church of the Resurrection, of which I had attended before, and this church was an offshoot from.

Question # 2

I found that the involvement in the service to be the most interesting thing about the church visit. Near the beginning the pastor had each of the people in the congregation come up and receive a prayer and anointment with oil. It was a very small congregation, so the interactions were easy to carry out. When we had a break the pastor would implore us to greet one another around us and interact with each other. He would ask a question and look for a response, then make us repeat his main points. I had a little trouble with this, because some of the responses were in Spanish. There were also responsive readings as a normal part of the service. When told to greet someone around us near the end and before communion, some went around and greeted the whole church.

Question # 3
Definitely the most challenging part was the Spanish. I did not no a word of Spanish, my foreign language is German. I was glad that the pastor did flavor his sermon and a lot of the service in English, otherwise I would have been completely lost. The slides too were for the most part bilingual, and they helped me understand the message. I could follow the phonetics of the songs, but the meaning was lost on me. However the feeling of the songs and the sermon were still there, even if the understanding was not. Overall, I could follow the service pretty well because the pastor would use some English, and was demonstrative and animated, not just speaking prose. It was still a challenge, and I did not get all of the message, but I did get the main points.

Question # 4
I did not realize the amount of diversity that they had in their own congregation. They are for the most part Mexican, but the two generations that attended the service were vastly different. The older generation didn't speak much English, although I believe they understood it pretty well. The younger generation on the other hand, were very much in tune with the American culture, and didn't speak Spanish very much. The problems that faced the church were pretty different from what the church I normally attend faces as well. The pastor prayed for physical well being, emphasizing sickness. He also prayed for people who could not get through immigration, or were having trouble with it. It shows that the church might have different problems with what I am normal faced with.