Mark Meyers

Church name: Lawndale Christian Community Church

Church address: 3827 W Ogden Ave, Chicago, IL 60623

Date attended: October 23, 2016

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

I attended Lawndale Christian Community Church in the South Side of Chicago. As we exited our train, the landscape and surrounding environment was starkly different from the suburban sprawl of Wheaton. Lines of row-homes and storefront churches greeted our eyes as we walked through the neighborhood to the church building. As we entered the church, we were immediately welcomed. From the moment we stepped in, we were greeted, handed bulletins, given directions, and guided into the worship space. The music was loud and lively, and the congregation seemed to be highly engaged. It was a predominately African-American congregation, made up of members of the community. The space was arranged differently than what I am used to as well. The chairs were turned inward, facing a stage in the center of the room. This was a refreshing experience, as it allowed us to see each others faces as we worshipped together. After the singing, their was an extended time of prayer for those affected by recent deaths in the community. Particularly striking was the prayer of one mother regarding the violence in the community. Her heavy grief and sense of loss was profound, as were her passionate pleas for help, and yet her genuine, earnest faith was palpable. After the prayers their was a sermon that centered on forgiveness and peacemaking. The sermon was highly interactive, with the pastor engaging heavily with the congregation. As we left the service, we were bombarded once again with warm welcomes and friendly faces. 

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

I found the sense of community at Lawndale incredibly compelling. Everyone seemed to know each other, and they all greeted one another with hugs and laughter. Through every aspect of the service – the singing, the prayers, the message – an overwhelming sense of connectedness, unity, friendship pervaded. In my experience with predominately white churches, church often seems like something that we all show up to so that we can receive something or get something out of it for ourselves. At Lawndale, however, church seemed more like something that we collectively gathered to do, to enact together. I found this remarkably refreshing. I also found the immediacy and urgency of their worship to be extremely appealing. The prayers were urgent and expectant, delivered from the present experiences of the people with a keen dependence on God's response. The singing was expressive and heartfelt, seeming to spring up from deep wells of devotion and love for God in their souls. The preaching, though certainly unlike the measured, expositional preaching I am used to, seemed prophetic in some ways, addressing the current situation of the community with a word from the mouth of the Lord for today.

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

For me, the most shocking aspect of the service was in seeing some of the effects of the violence in Chicago first hand, visibly and tangibly displayed. Hearing the cries, laments, and prayers of these people in the midst of their grief left me somewhat shaken. Though we often hear about the violence that is ravaging these Chicago neighborhoods, we often fail to see what that kind of pain, that kind horror actually looks like. Furthermore, the faith and hope with which the church responded in the midst of such hardship challenged my estimations of my own perseverance. It was convicting to see how these remarkably faithful people respond in the midst of so much suffering. 

How did the service help you to reflect on questions of wealth and poverty?

I think for me, the service illustrated how issues of violence and poverty are best understood on the ground, from within the community itself. It demonstrated how isolation from poverty can lead to insulation against any proper response to it. In this way, proximity and exposure to the realities of violence and poverty, face-to-face contact with those directly affected by them, can act as the best way to gain a legitimate understanding of how to respond appropriately to them. This proximity can also act as the catalyst for compassion, shattering our apathy to the plight of the poor and awakening us to our own privilege. Additionally, proximity can give us eyes to see the dignity of the poor, to see the image of our God in the human faces that fill those communities, and to engage with them as people who we can know and learn from and befriend.