Madeline Allen Church Visit #1

Church name: Wheaton Bible Church-Puente del Pueblo

Church address: 27w500 North Ave., West Chicago, IL 

Date attended: 02/16

Church category: Different Ethnic or Racial Demographic

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

The worship service I attended began with greeting one another(similar to regular context), which was refreshing as I was able to use Spanish, something I have not done in a while. Overall, the structure was fairly similar to my understanding of a regular context (greeting, worship, sermon, worship). 

As far as different from my regular context, I cannot say. I am currently not attending church and most recently was attending LaSalle Street Church when I lived downtown last semester. I have not been able to connect with a church in Wheaton and as a senior, I have had difficulty finding motivation to do so. But, in general, the Wheaton Bible Church’s Spanish service was different in the sense that it is a Spanish speaking service and is predominantly a Hispanic demographic. Additionally, the passionate, preaching style and consistent evidential use of Scripture was fairly new to me. 

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
The two things I found most interesting and appealing about the church was the ability of the pastor to preach directly to the congregation for such a long time, and the diversity of the audience. 

First, the pastor’s passion and love for the Lord was palpable as he spent over an hour using Scripture to convey his message, with limited use of media tools. Although I did not understand most of his jokes, he had a way of engaging the audience through his excitement and respect for the authority of Scripture.

Second, during the initial greeting and the pastor’s comments, it became clear that the congregation is made up of many different cultures within the Hispanic culture. For example, the pastor mentioned a handful of countries that the congregation had originated from including Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras to name a few.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
For me, it was challenging to translate the message from Spanish to English at such a quick rate, especially knowing that not many people around me were probably doing the same thing. On a more personal level I felt limited in connecting with the people around me due to the language and cultural barriers that were obvious to any observer(my lack of fluent spanish, a guest at the service, and my white skin). 

Second, I found it disorienting to sit for that long. The service ended up lasting for an hour an a half or so, something I am not very used to. On top of the length of the service, the majority of the service was the sermon which was difficult for a non native Spanish speaker because most of my energy was spent on translating. 

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 Wheaton Bible Church’s Spanish service revealed to me the beauty of reading Scripture in a direct and simple way. This form of communication reminded me of Scripture’s ability to reach all types of people in all types of settings. I found it interesting that the pastor was extremely direct with the message, maybe mentioning one or two stories to display the message, but ultimately sticking to Scripture to reveal God’s heart versus using an every day life story to relate to the congregation (something I have experienced a lot in other church settings). 

As far as theology goes, the service displayed Scripture’s authority when studying God. The pastor evidently was basing his theology on faith and the Word, more than on personal experience. Additionally, this theology of sola scriptura was displayed through the songs that were sang during worship as the majority of the lyrics were direct verses from Scripture.