I attended the Dupage African Methodist Episcopal Church for
my first visit. The service was quite similar to the services that I am used to
in its layout but was very different in how they went about it. They had much
of the same things that the Methodist church that I attended at home. They sang
the doxology, they had deacons out in robes and the pastor wore a robe, they
had the choir helping to lead the songs as well as an actual leader, and they
had a very similar order to service as well. However, the specifics of what they
did in the service were all different.
First of all, they had some form of music going almost the whole service
ranging from everybody singing to the organist playing background music under
the sermon. The largest difference though, was how excited the pastor seemed to
be about his sermon. He would get to points and be basically yelling and
singing his sermon at the same time. He was so much more excited than the very
laid back and chill sermons that I am used to in Methodist churches.
The
thing I like most about the service was when they welcomed the guests. They had
everyone who was visiting stand up and say who they were and then why they were
there. Then we all sat down and the rest of the church stood up and turned to
us and sang us a song that I still don’t remember. After that they had a “meet
and greet” time, and everybody around us came and shook our hand and welcomed
us and told us that they were glad we were there. I felt quite welcomed in the
church; more than I have in any other church. Another thing that I liked was at
the end, they had everybody hold hands and sing the doxology, though in a very
syncopated way that I wasn’t used to. I really enjoyed the unity that I felt at
that point.
The
thing I found the most disorienting about the service was not knowing what was
being sung during the songs. There was nothing projecting the words and we only
sung one song from the hymnal. So for the songs that I didn’t have memorized by
heart, I could not sing. Luckily though, they sang mostly things I knew, so it
was not very disorienting. However, another thing that I found both
disorienting and interesting was the sermon. As I said, I really enjoyed his
intensity and how much he got into his sermon. At some points though, he was
yelling/singing loud enough and passionately enough, that I could not
understand what he was saying. So, at some points, I was really just listening
to him being excited and not actually to what he was saying.
The
aspect of theology that I could see much more clearly in this context is that
of the unity of the church. I had never really realized how much the churches I
attend were focused on the individual person, but this church seemed to care so
much about everybody together. For instance, when they had everybody holds each
other’s hands and sing the doxology. It helped me to see how, though we are
each worshipping God ourselves, we are to praise God together as the church. Also,
when they were all “meeting and greeting,” everybody seemed legitimately happy
to see every other person, and they were telling everybody, who were regulars,
how happy they were to see the other person there. It was like they were just
as happy to see us visitors there as they were to see every other person there
as well. So the unity that I felt there with other brothers and sisters in
Christ, even though I was one of three Caucasians there, was unbelievable.
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