Sarah O'Connell - Church Visit #3

Church name: Jesus People USA

Church address: 920 W Wilson Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Date attended: 4/6/2014

Church category: Significantly lower socioeconomic demographic, at least ten miles away from Wheaton College

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

Jesus People is located in the city so the environment was already different than my normal experience. Jesus People actually meets behind a coffee shop, but the room is spacious and great care is taken creating an atmosphere of worship and that makes you feel at home.  Everyone in the church seemed to know one another and they greeted my friend and I with sincere smiles and questions. Recently a member of their congregation passed away and everyone seemed to have known and loved her. They were grieving together as a community.

The service begins with worship led by two women, which is different from any of my other church visits and my home church. They used a lot of different instruments and sang a wide variety of songs, from “When the Saints Go Marching In” to “Lord, I Need You”. Then a guest pastor, Peter Cha, from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, gave a sermon. We had communion, which they do the first Sunday of every month and then ended with worship and announcements.

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

            Even though the majority of the congregation was white, there still seemed to be a diversity of backgrounds mixed together within the community. Jesus People has an active homeless ministry so many of the members are homeless. The bond within the community was evident within the worship service.

Pastor Cha’s message was based on Psalm 133 and the unity of the church. He is a Korean American and shared many stories from his own life and faith with us. His sermon was the one that impacted me most from my church visits and the one that I found most applicable and beneficial. He talked about how the church’s job is to adopt a posture of open arms, which is a posture of humility and vulnerability, and then to wrap your arms around people without using the “bear hug of assimilation”.  His way of communicating was simple to understand without over simplifying the issue.

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

            Although I hate admitting this, one of the most disorienting parts of the service was the appearance of some of the members of the congregation. The whole congregation, including the staff, was dressed very casually, which is similar to my church back home in Pittsburgh. However, some of the congregation had a Goth style and appearance.

            I felt so convicted sitting there and being surprised to see people like this in a church. Church is not a place that is meant for conservatively dressed, cookie cutter people, but for everyone who is seeking God. I praise God that Jesus people is reaching out and ministering to a community that I would not have reached out to and for being a witness to what the church of Christ should be like.

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

            Pastor Cha focused on how embracing people of different cultures and backgrounds in necessary and beneficial for the church body. He highlighted how interacting with people of different cultures can reveal the dark side of your own culture that could be twisting our faith that we are blind to because we are immersed in it.

            Pastor Cha pointed out how the cross did not only offer reconciliation with God, but also reconciliation within our relationships with each other. He used the symbol of the cross to illustrate the vertical and horizontal reconciliation given through Christ’ death and resurrection. Although this idea was not new to me, he preached in a fresh way that shed new light on an important and known truth.

            Also, the worship leader at one point shared how difficult the death of their friend had been for her and how the whole church was grieving. She then told how she wanted us to sing the song “All My Tears”, which celebrates how death is not something to mourn but something to celebrate. The congregation truly celebrated the “home going” of their friend and sister in Christ, in the midst of their grief.