Adriana Betz - Church Visit #1

Church: Chicago Community Mennonite Church

Church Address: 425 S. Central Park Blvd. Chicago, IL

Date Attended: 01/26/14

Church Category: Different racial/ethnic demographic

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

The congregation of CCMC is a small, close-nit group of diverse individuals. There was diversity in race, gender, and age – something that has been hard for me to find at Wheaton. I was surprised by the liturgy in worship – I grew up without any liturgy but after attending Church of the Resurrection while at Wheaton, I got used to a great deal of liturgical worship. There wasn’t a lot – but a few of the prayers were sourced from the Book of Common Prayer.

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

My favorite aspect was definitely the lighting of the peace candle. As they lit it, they said, “We light this candle to remind us to spread peace throughout our congregation and beyond”. I thought it was a beautiful tangible representation of the scriptural image light and theme of peace.

Another appealing aspect was the church’s firm stance on issues of sexual diversity – the pastor stated: “I love our people… We are at the front edge of LGBTQ inclusion in the Mennonite church. I love these people with whom we get to be church in the broader sense.” I loved that she emphasized her love for the LGBTQ community and explicitly recognized them as important pieces of the church. It was refreshing and genuine. The initial liturgical prayers involved a verbal recognition that it is only together that the community could find wholeness, and that theme was carried through the entire service.

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

It wasn’t so much challenging – but this is the first time I’ve been in a church where the head pastor was a woman. It took me a moment of assimilation – and then I settled in to the environment and was able to recognize ways her personality and character exemplified incredible leadership qualities and the ways she made everyone feel at ease and at home within the church community.

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 pastor read from Acts & Philippians and focused on Paul sending Timothy out to churches that he might “be cheered” by news of the churches. I never really understood that as Paul needing encouragement through the gift of being connected to other congregations. The pastor took this literally, and reached out to several Mennonite churches for news and updates – then reading reports about their journeys, prayers, and joys so “that we may delight in their stories”. The reports ranged from ideas about communal meals and creating art as a church body, to churches struggling to be a community where mystery and mercy came together. It was inspiring to hear the inner workings of all those congregations – a concept I’d never seen another church model with such depth.