Church Adventures: A Report from the Field

Oh boy, what a weekend I had! I visited three very different (but all very wonderful!) church services over two days, and I learned a lot. Mostly I think I learned that I want to keep up this experiment.

On Saturday morning my dad and I went to a place called Seed of Abraham, a Messianic Jewish congregation meeting in a church in St. Louis Park. My dad had been there twice before, visiting with Nate and the youth group from Open Door, I think. Here's how Seed of Abraham describes itself on it's website...

We are a One New Man congregation comprised of Jews and Gentiles who have been given new life by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through His Messiah, Yeshua - the Promised One.

Yep, this is a church of Christian Jews-- people of Jewish heritage who believe that Jesus (or Yeshua) is the Messiah.

This was one of the more bizarre experiences of my weekend. To me, it felt like a combination of a Jewish and a Pentacostalist service. We got to the church an hour after the service started. Apparently this is normal-- the service did last a good three hours! We were welcomed warmly at the door, handed a veritible tome of pamphlets about Messianic Judaism, and ushered into the sanctuary, where a couple of people were leading a song I knew from my experience at contemporary evangelical churches. People were waving colorful flags and dancing in the aisles. Up front there were two men waving a large colorful peice of fabric up and down, and people were dancing under it. A small group was dancing in unison in a circle beside them in a way that looked familiarly Jewish to me. Some of the worship songs were sung in both English and Hebrew translations. One woman stood up and read a rather lengthy word from God she had recieved during the service. Shouts of Hallelujah! and Amen! were not unfrequent. Once a woman started blowing a shofar (a ram's horn used in Jewish worship) during a praise song. There was no sermon, but a special musical guest-- a singer-songwriter who sang very personal songs about her experience with God and Yeshua. The songs were entertwined with VERY dramatic readings of several psalms by another woman, who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment. The atmosphere was emotionally laden throughout, alternating between jubilance and brokenness.

Although I saw many women participating fully and even leading worship, I was a bit surprised and dissapointed that the language used in prayer, in worship, and in the pamphlets made no real attempt at egalitarianism. Humankind was 'man' and God was almost universally a 'He'. The theology seemed to be a mixture of Jewish and evangelical, with a focus on the power of God and the importance of individual salvation.

On Sunday morning I went with Brendan (my boyfriend, if you hadn't heard) to a little Unitarian Universalist congregation by his house called Pilgrim House. This places tagline was "We ask all alike to think —not all to think alike.

The congregation met in a former one-room school house and can't have been bigger than 40 people. At the beginning of the service they asked any visiters to stand so that they could welcome us-- we were the only ones. There was no cross or explicit religious insignia anywhere, but there was a candle in a chalice at the front and on several flags, posters and the bulliten. There was a rainbow flag at the front of the meeting area, and the fact that the congregation was "LGBT Welcoming" was the first thing listed in a pamphlet we recieved. Right away it was made clear that the group was lay-led-- they had no hired clergy-person or pastor. The person leading the service on Sunday was a Unitarian Universalist seminarian, and apparently each week another community member or invited guest led the service.

The service started with the of the lighting of the chalice, a time for group announcements from anyone in the congregation, (during which we sang happy birthday three times!) a time for members to light candles in order to bring their own joys and concerns in front of the community and the singing of a hymn about the gathering of community. The sermon, conveniently, explained a lot about what Unitarian Universalism means in terms of a favorite UU hymn, "Spirit of Life." To a Unitarian Universalist, according to this sermon, the Spirit of Life called out to in this hymn could be understood as God, or human potential, or the life-giving force of community or just about anything else. After the sermon, a mic was passed around the congregation and anyone who had a comment or a story or a critique related to the sermon (or sometimes not...) had a chance to speak. It was important to this congregation that they not be led by one person's opinions, but that each unique experience and belief be lifted up as valid.

After the service there was a time for coffee and treats during which at least half of the congregation came to talk to Brendan and I. Everyone was very very nice and incredibly welcoming. One man gave us a history of the UU movement, another the history of this specific congregation, and one woman gave us directions to a Buddhist temple we could visit sometime. Many people wanted to know how we came to visit Pilgrim House, and hoped that we were enjoying ourselves and wanted to know if we had any questions. Everyone wore nametags, although aside from us, everyone in the room seemed to already know eachother. The focus on service to the neighbor and the earth was evident-- a compost bin and a sign-up sheet for a food-shelf shift were prominently displayed.

I loved this community and felt very blessed to have visited. I thourougly enjoyed the open conversation between people of differing beliefs and the spirit of service togetherness that pervaded my experience at Pilgrim House. Nonetheless, something seemed lacking to me. The language, while open and accepting, lacked conviction. Every reference to God or prayer was mitigated-- "what I call God" or "a practice of conciousness that some of you might call prayer." While it felt good to be at a place where my questions were just as accepted as my answers, I missed the sense that anything could be actually true. Apparently some Unitarian Universalist congregations are more oriented towards Christianity-- perhaps I will have to visit one of those for another perspective.

Finally, on Sunday Night, I went (again with my dad) to visit the Community of St. Martin, an "ecumenical Christian worshipping community committed to peace with justice", as their website describes them. Everything about CSM had a very Camp Amnicon vibe, which got me very excited. I actually heard about St. Martin's through my friend Meg, a long-time Amniconer and a general all-around neat-o person.

CSM meets in the basement of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis' Seward Neighborhood. We got there a bit late-- just in time for community prayer requests. This community was even smaller than the one at Pilgrim House, and all the better for it-- no more than 30 people, I'm sure. The service here consisted of a litany (a prayer read back and forth between two groups, basically) focused on mindfulness, a few songs a talk by one of the community members about her work as a nurse, and community prayer, popcorn style, during which anyone could pray aloud. The Bible readings were from an inclusive translation of the Bible (very exciting to me!) and the entire service was not only accepting of, but also affirmed all people. To me it felt just like a staff worship gathering at camp-- one of my absolute favorite things. I even recognized one of the songs! It turns out that CSM is pretty connected with Amnicon-- they send a trip every summer and a retreat in the winter.

After the service there was some social time, with juice and fresh bread and good conversation. We were all enjoying ourselves thoroughly when I saw something black fluttering down the hallway outside the room we were in-- a bat had gotten into the old church! It flew around and around the room, making us all duck and shriek and laugh, until my dad finally caught it in his coat and helped it outside. Always an adventure!

I left CSM feeling like I'd found something that really made sense to me-- a community that was rooted in faith, like Seed of Abraham and in service and togetherness, like Pilgrim House, all with a sense of openness and welcome. It felt good.

Although my three weekend experiences were across the board with regards to theology, they all had something in common-- an incredible sense of community. That is the biggest thing I'm taking away from the weekend-- to me, church has to mean 'togetherness'.