Anca Varvara –
Church Visit
Church name: St.
Sabina
Church address:
West 78th Place, Chicago IL
Date attended:
October 30, 2016
Describe the worship service you
attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
What was most uniquely different
from my experience at my own church compared with my church visit was that St.
Sabina is a Catholic church with the dominant demographic being African
American. I really loved the service and found it refreshing. I have gone to
Catholic churches and attended mass many times, but I don’t think I’ve ever
been to a Catholic church shaped so deeply by the congregation. Even though I
was new and felt different, I can describe how I felt as warm and inviting. I
loved their painting of Jesus in the front as a black man. It was powerful and
conveyed to me victory. What was similar to my regular church context was the
worship. What struck me was that it is a Catholic church, but the worship style
is charismatic. It was a really fun time.
What did you find the most interesting or
appealing about the worship service?
I enjoyed worshiping there and was
refreshed in God’s presence. I think it was overall a blessing to be there. I
also felt very welcomed, and I loved holding hands with the congregation at the
last prayer of the service. I felt loved even though I was not known among the
congregation. I received many hugs and sayings of peace as we departed. I was
encouraged by their love for one another, for their community, and for myself,
a stranger. I think compared to my church, it can be hard to feel known and
loved by a congregation when it is so huge (my church being 5,000 on a
weekend). This was a very appealing
aspect of my visit there. The change in church decoration and arrangement was
also a switch from my regular church, but I found all the stain glass windows
and art to be beautiful and captivating, especially, as I’ve mentioned, the
painting of Jesus as black in the front.
What did you find the most disorienting
or challenging about the worship service?
I had a great experience this
morning, but I did find it challenging to think of this church and it’s
community as one that I could also enter and join regularly. I feel like I
would be welcomed, but I started to think and wonder what good it would be for
me to go there. I’m also not Catholic so that is also a difference, but I
wondered this morning what it means to be a vessel of love sent from this
church into its community. I also was thinking of the ways I’m doing that now
at my own church. I would say that it was a reflective experience for me this
morning, dwelling on the concept of church and community and neighborhood.
Since my church is so big, a lot of us are dispersed in the area, a heavy
amount living in spaces that are wealthy. I was thinking a lot this morning
about church and how it reflects community and the community that it brings and
creates. I am wondering if my church is doing this, knowing that in many ways
it does not. These were a few of my thoughts this morning.
How did the service help you to reflect
on questions of wealth and poverty?
The service was deeply tied to the daily
life of the people. I found that they took a noticeable emphasis on the tithe
and the congregation gave generously. Economics definitely shaped the service. I
found it interesting that the announcements included sales going on at local
grocery stores and different potlucks the church was hosting, inviting the
church to a free meal. This definitely helped me reflect on the questions of
wealth and poverty, because the nature of the service was affected by poverty
and need. I found the church trying to fill the gap of need through their
announcements and special ministries, including giving meals and different health
related services. From my own church, this was very different, and it definitely
has to do with the wealth spectrum. Wealth and poverty affects the church
because it has to do so intimately with the people themselves and the lives
they are living.
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