Nathan Richard - Church Visit #3

Nathan Richard - Church Visit #3

Church name: Saint Sabina Church

Church address: 1210 W 78^th Pl, Chicago, IL 60620

Date attended: 3/8/15

Church category: Difference ethnicity

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

The worship service at Saint Sabina was incredibly different than what I am used to. We were first alerted to the different style when we were greeted by an enthusiastic young man who told us that the service would last for three or three and a half hours, and that we better get ready to cry because of the emotions that were about to run wild! Indeed, pure emotion is a great way to describe this charismatic Catholic church. In fact, the pastor/father addressed this very fact in his message on Jeremiah’s “fire in his bones”. He described their enthusiasm not as solely emotion, “but smoke coming out from the fire within”. Honestly, I thought this service was more of an entertaining show than any service I’d been to before, though the length of the service certainly led to plenty of time for biblical content, as well! I can’t really think of any similarities between Saint Sabina and my regular church context, which made this church visit particularly enlightening.

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

As a side note, the building was absolutely gorgeous, as I have never worshipped in a cathedral before. The shape of the buttresses did direct my focus upwards, and I also appreciated the cultural, yet respectful and worshipful, art inside the church, including the famous “Black Jesus” painting. However, I found the genuine joy from the worshippers to be the most appealing aspect of the service. Nearly everyone I saw was incredibly excited to be at church that morning, and truly viewed it as a way to “re-charge their batteries”. The nearly universal participation was particularly evident during the tithing portion of the service. As this point in time basically every single person in the audience got up, one row at a time, and gave their money at the front of the room while dancing and singing. While I wouldn’t personally recommend this method to encourage tithing, it did show how connected each member was to the church.

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

The sermon was loud…very loud. Though I have seen many parodies of this speaking style, I have never actually witnessed a loud, African-American style sermon. Though I appreciate his enthusiasm, I just did not see the need to yell as loudly as he did, with the microphones amplifying as loud as they were. This sadly greatly distracted me from his actual words, as I was legitimately worried about hearing loss, due to the ringing in my ears! The service did contrast the loud moments with softer, more reflective moments, and I took solace in these quiet moments, somewhat dreading when I would have to cover my ears due to the pure volume. The reason that this was disorienting to me may have been purely because of my utter lack of experience with speeches like this, but I have a hard time believing that I learn more about God and am more pumped up when I am being yelled at.

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

I had two very neat realizations this morning: first, I learned why a worship service is called a worship service, and I had a wonderful glimpse into how the kingdom will look with a variety of cultures and traditions. After a half hour of vibrant singing, the congregants took a moment to quiet down and truly worship the awe of God, which I found to be very inspiring. I also was struck by the variety in church worship styles. There are so many different traditions, and I think that it’s interesting that we all envision eternity to be styled after the church traditions that we are used to. Seeing Saint Sabina contrasted to my own church demonstrated the wide range of ways to honor God, and it sprked my wonder as to how we will worship God in the kingdom age.