Nathan Smith - Church Visit #3

Church Name: Lawndale Community Church
Church Address: 3827 West Ogden, Chicago, IL 60623
Date Attended: 2/11/14
Church Category: Significantly different socioeconomic class

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
Lawndale Community Church is located in Chicago in the middle of a significantly lower socioeconomic class than your typical Wheaton family. When I walked into the sanctuary, I was immediately struck by many differences between this church and College Church, the church I typically attend. College Church is a very big building, beautifully decorated, fairly new-looking. It's only purpose is clearly to be a church - it serves no other function that i know of (except parts of it are used for a school during the week). This is not the case with Lawndale Community Church. It seems that this church is primarily used as a kind of community center. The sanctuary was in a gym. Also African Americans comprised what seemed to be at least 90% of the congregation, which, again, is very different from College Church which is probably between 90 - 95% white at least. Also the stage was in the center of the gym and all the seating happened around it, which I thought was very interesting.

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
The whole service was so different than my normal service experience I don't really know where to start. The whole thing was a lot more relaxed than College Church. We were freaking out because we were 2 minutes late, but there were people showing up at 11:45 for the 11am service. There seemed to be a much more relaxed understanding of time. The flow of the service was also a lot less sensitive to time as well. Although they, every now and again, made reference to "we should speed this along", everything took a while. There was more singing, more announcements. My favorite difference was a corporate prayer and praise sharing time. I thought that this was such a good way to put a face to the many prayer requests that get prayed in the congregation every Sunday. Also, the things that were getting prayed for were not things that typically get prayed for in College Church - family in jail, people not being able to pay for things, praise for people getting jobs, praise that people are getting good grades, and things like that. Really the only thing that was similar was that the length of the sermon was comparable to the length of a College Church sermon, maybe even a little bit shorter.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
Honestly, I didn't feel too disoriented or challenged. I think the biggest thing for me was letting go of my pride and really allowing myself to enter into the time and not worrying about what other people might be thinking of me. I really appreciated the friendly, jovial atmosphere of the service - I really felt like everyone knew each other, and that was really cool. So it felt a little weird to be an outsider to that, I guess, especially because nobody tried to talk to us.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
I really saw in this service a fuller picture of the Body of Christ. I really loved the ability to see that church, Protestantism, and Christianity extend beyond the primarily white, primarily suburban, primarily upper and middle class family that I have grown so used to by living in and around the Chicago suburbs for my whole life. I really enjoyed seeing the beauty of community that this church presented to me - seeing people worship God through tears and laughter together in front of each other. There was so little pretense here, or so it seemed to me. People were real with each other, and that was a beautiful and refreshing thing.