church visit #2

So after the big ole' mega church, wewent to the local UCC church in our neighborhood, The congregation is "open and affirming" and had a nice supportive GLBT bumper sticker next to the entrance. It was a pretty small church, with maybe 40 people in attendance on this day. The people looked pretty diverse for this university town, with older and younger people, some african amercans, a few gay couples, a nice assortment of children, and the obligatory middle aged guy with a pony tail.

Instead of Christian Rock, there was a violinist playing the pre-service music. the service was also more traditional with an actual liturgy with readings from the bible, responsive readings, and a sermon that was for some reason called a "message." Like the mega church, this church seemed to want to seem "modern" and the first two hymn were taking from a hymn book that consisted mostly of songs written after 1970. The first song was pretty dorky, the second better, and I was pleased the last one was an old favorite of mine from the more traditional hymn book.

I was impressed at how well the congregation sang! I was a member of a much larger UCC congregation before and , appart from the choir, it seemed everyone just stood and mouthed the words. This place was too small for a choir, but made up for it with singing which, while not baptist like enthusiasm, filled the room nicely.

The day we chose to visit was the fiftieth aniversery of the church, we we were in for a bunch of inside church baseball. People came up and talked about how this church affected them, how it started out with only 5 people. I was impressed that apparently the group went door to door to find members (most mainline protestants are just too uptight for that). The service was not overly formal, with people joking around with each other. The Rev. seemed to know everyone personally called people out by name several times. He did not dance around like the mega church guy but he spoke clearly and with definite commitment and enthusiasm. The "message" used the parable of the mustard seed to illuminate both the growth of this little church and the role of the church in influencing the surrounding community.

After church, there was cake and coffee, and we hung around a bit. My dug in with gusto, and I had three cups of coffee. The people were nice, the food was good, and the coffee was caffienated. Everything the spiritual pilgrim needs.

Going to a mega church

Since I have moved back to Iowa City, I have been a wastrel with respect to church going. But last Sunday after going out to breakfast I saw this "mega church" and was curious. So I cajoled my kids into going inside and checking it out.

I knew I was in for something different when I saw some guy in bright clothes directing traffic in the parking lot. Lots and lots of cars and I wondered if mine was the only one with an Obama bumper sticker. As we walked in, there were these people standing behind some sort of booth. It reminded me of a movie theartre and I wondered if we would need to buy tickets. (Really it was "family check in" for sunday school). The first part of the service was all music. There was a band on stage that played some rockified hymns. I liked some of it but wished they did not modify the lyrics of an old hymn--it just did not sound right. My youngest son thought it was way too loud. This music part lasted for a long time.

Finally the minister comes out and does his spiel. The guy was good. He moved. He shaked. He made some jokes. He made some good points as he discussed the dangers of idolizing wealth. (Personally I think we can read more into the "consider the lilies...." stuff than he did, but you can't expect everyone to be a hippy). But he did some weird things too. At one point he refered to the crowd Jesus was talking to as "christians" and even said these 'christians' were being persecuted by "the jews." He seemed not to care about about chronology, making it sound as if the pre-conversion Paul was hanging around at the Sermon on the Mount, ready to strike. As we walked back to my car I talked to my kids about this and decided to back and talk to the minister. I just chatted briefly and he was nice but it was apparent that he did not think it was a big deal. In the sermon he also tended to pick bible verses out of the air without context. So he is talking about Luke, and more or less sticks to the text there and then BAM its some random quote for Daniel just thrown in to spice it up.

Another thing which my kids noticed was that, while there was coffee and ice water.. none of the other typical post-chuch yummies were there (that we saw anyway, it was a big place)