Hester Buell - Church Visit #3

Church name: Olive Tree Congregation

Church address: 400 North Elmhurst Road, Prospect Heights, IL 60070

Date attended: March 22, 2014

Church category: More than 10 miles from Wheaton, Less liturgical

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

The Olive Tree Congregation is a Messianic congregation, so I wasn't sure what to expect when I visited. In a lot of ways, it was much more similar to my home church than I expected. The small congregation gathered for contemporary worship songs, Scripture readings, a recitation of the Shema, and a sermon. It felt a lot like the other Evangelical churches I have visited, although it was much less liturgical than my home church (there was no processional, vestments, or call and response). The only things about the service that were 'Jewish' were the shofar that summoned the congregation to worship, the few worship songs that sounded more Jewish, and the recitation of the Shema while facing East.  

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

What I appreciated most was not the worship service itself, but the community of the congregation. I have never felt so instantly welcomed at a new church. Everyone at the church seemed intimately involved with one another's lives, and they stayed around to talk for more than an hour after the service. I was also fascinated and delighted by their Sunday school, which they called Shabbat School. Immediately after the service, the congregants go to Shabbat School, where they memorize the "Sh'ma Yisrael" chant while learning about its theological, cultural, and historical context. This fascinated me and helped me realize just how much our understanding of Scripture is influenced by our understanding of Jewish culture, language, and history, since Scripture's authors and original audience were Jews.

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

I felt disoriented whenever the congregation would chant or sing in Hebrew, since obviously I don't speak the language. I was afraid of doing something culturally insensitive at some point, because I simply didn't know what to expect. However, the service was not as culturally different as I expected, and the congregation soon made me feel at home. 

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

As an American Evangelical, I don't often think about my Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. It's ironic how much we forget about God's chosen people, when they are the central characters throughout the entire Bible. In our suburban American churches, it's so easy to get disconnected from the specificity of the Gospel––the history of God's work and revelation in space and time. Following Christ is not just about being nice and feeling a connection with something transcendent, it is a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who revealed Himself to people in specific places and times and chose a specific group of people to follow Him and bless the nations. Christ is not a disembodied god or an icon of doing good, He is God made flesh, a Jewish man born in a small town in Israel, brought up in the Torah and the teaching of the synagogues. When we abandon the richly specific history of the Gospel, our Christianity turns into spiritual feelings and therapy disguised as religion, instead of a relationship with YHWH.