Nathan Smith - Church Visit #1

Church Name: Nueva Esperanza
Church Address: 1825 College Avenue, Wheaton, IL
Date Attended: 21/9/14
Church Category: Different ethnic or racial demographic

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
I discovered online that Nueva Esperanza is actually a PCA church, which is very similar denominationally to all the churches I have ever attended. The service had a very familiar format: a couple contemporary worship songs to open, tithes, then the sermon, and then (if my memory serves me right) a song or two to close. There were a couple little differences: there was usually a short prayer in between each song. I now attend College Church which does not usually sing contemporary worship songs. Furthermore, College Church does not have women pass around the offering plates but do have them pray; at Nueva Esperanza, women did both. The pastor also focused less on the text than I am used to and spent more time trying to relate the text to the experiences of the congregation. However, the main difference was really the language. I attended the Spanish language service which radically transformed my experience because this was my first time attending a service in a different language.

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
I honestly really loved having the service in Spanish. As one who is studying Spanish at Wheaton, it was really cool to be able to be fully immersed in a Spanish-speaking context. I was interested in the fact that every single worship song was a famous English worship song that was translated into Spanish. It was also interesting to note the difference in interpersonal dynamics. At College Church, people tend to greet one another with handshakes and, when the service starts, people do not talk but sit down in their seats. Nueva Esperanza was a very different experience. People were greeting each other with giant hugs and kisses on the cheek and there was a fair amount of talking going on in the back even during the beginning of the service.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
Here, again, the language was challenging. At the beginning of the service, my comprehension was 100%, but somewhere in the middle, I realized that I had zoned out and missed the last five minutes, at which point I mustered up my remaining energy at got back up to 70% comprehension for the last part of the service. I think for me the other hard part of the language barrier was feeling the social dynamics between me and the other members of the congregation. I don't speak Spanish super well and none of the people with whom I spoke spoke English very well, so it felt in some ways that the conversations were challenging because none of us were sure what language to speak in and how best to get to know each other.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
One of the things I appreciated about the service was the focus on relating the text to the experiences of the congregation instead of keeping it quite so theoretical and intellectual as I am typically used to seeing. I also appreciated seeing different ways in which community and fellowship happened in this context as opposed to my regular context. I think the coolest thing for me, though, was being reminded that the Gospel is bigger than just the English language but is really a global thing that spans both place and time. It was so cool to be able to see this on the ground in a really tangible way that I normally don't have as much context to experience outside of the classroom.