Callie Riel - Church Visit #3

Church Name: Monroe Street Church of Christ

Church Address: 3300 W Monroe St, Chicago IL

Date Attended: 3/22/15

Church Category: Lower Socioeconomic Class

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

Andrew and I attended a 5:00 Sunday night service at Monroe Street Church of Christ.  When we entered the building, we were greeting enthusiastically.  I have never been so welcomed at any church.  After some introductions, we entered the sanctuary and chose a seat near the middle of the room.  The sanctuary was beautiful and homey, with red pews and an interesting shape.  While we were sitting and waiting for the service to begin, a woman approached us, introduced herself, and invited us to move closer to the front of the room.  As we were moving forward, a man approached the podium and began to sing acapella.  Within a few seconds, the rest of the congregation had joined him.  At this point, there were about 20 other people at the service.  I was unfamiliar with the song, which was taken from a folder of spiritual-sounding music.  We sang a few more songs from that folder, and then sang some hymns from a hymnal. 

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

The entire service was completely different from anything I’ve ever experienced.  I especially enjoyed the music.  All songs were sung acapella, but the congregation sounded great and a few people were even harmonizing.  The only song I recognized was It is Well.   I was absolutely blown away by the welcoming that Andrew and I received.  I believe that every person in the service approached us and introduced themselves to us.  Several of them even gave us hugs! We were not only welcomed before and after the service, but we were even mentioned by name and prayed for during the service.   I also enjoyed the way that the audience was engaged in the sermon.  After many of the pastor’s statements or main points, the congregation would respond with “amen” and even “preach it, brother”. 

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

Andrew and were the only white people in the building, and we stuck out a lot.  The service seemed to be a continuation of the previous services, and I got the impression that everyone in there had stayed the whole day.  Andrew and I were also the youngest people in the room, with most people middle aged and older.  The congregation was also mainly composed of women, many of whom seemed to be single.  At one point in the service, the pastor invited anyone who had not taken communion earlier that day to come forward and take communion.  No one came forward, and the service continued.  However, the people around us pointed to us and called out to the pastor that we needed to take communion.  The pastor paused the service to call Andrew and I forward, and then we sat in the front row as they discussed communion and prayed over us.  The two of us then received communion and returned to our seats. 

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

First of all, I thought the people in the congregation really embodied the idea of a body of Christ.  They welcomed us as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Furthermore, the sermon was presented in a very interesting way.  At my home church, the pastor is very technical.  In his sermons, he usually talks about the hermeneutics of the verse/passage we are studying, as well as the cultural context.  This sermon, however, was much simpler and more straightforward.  Even if I was skeptical of the pastor’s interpretation of the six verses we covered, I appreciated that the sermon applied directly to the congregation and was short and sweet.  The message itself was about what to do if someone in the body of Christ sinned.  The pastor talked about how if a person falls off a ship, the people on the ship do not stand there and ask how he fell.  Instead, they worry first about rescuing him and restoring him.  I thought that was an interesting point, and it was presented in a way I had never heard but that made a lot of sense.