Debbie Landeros Church visit #2

Church name: St. Paul Lutheran Church

Church address: 1025 W. Lake St, Melrose Park, IL 60160

Date attended: 3/8/2015

Church category: Lutheran (more liturgical)

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

            St. Paul is very different compared to my regular church context. The worship style is definitely more conservative. The style of worship reminded me very much of the style of worship in the early morning service at College Church. Compared to the style of worship at my home church, our worship service would have been way too progressive for the congregation of St. Paul.

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

            I found it interesting that they only used hymns. Being at a church that uses a lot of contemporary music it was nice to hear and sing hymns. I haven’t been in a worship service that only uses hymns for a while so it was very humbling to see this style of song used. Another thing that I noticed is that most of the congregation was made up of an older demographic. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the worship style, but I just found it really interesting to see that the church had a low number of younger aged members.

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

            Having attended a Lutheran high school, the style of worship was not new to me, so it wasn't very challenging for me. But the one thing that was challenging for me was seeing that there was a lack of younger aged members in the church. I think this was so disorienting for me because my church makes a big deal about having a style of worship that is more appealing for a younger demographic.

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 one aspect that I noticed during the whole service is that the Pastor relied very heavily on the scripture reading for the day. Compared to my church, we read the scripture reading and the pastor goes on to the sermon using the scripture reading maybe once or twice, but at St. Paul the Pastor would reference the scripture reading very often. This was so refreshing to see that the pastor actually used every word of the passage. Not that my pastor doesn't use the passage correctly, but it was interesting to see how much the pastor at St. Paul relied on the passage.