Sarah Kelly

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 visited Lawndale Christian Community Church with six other class members. We took the train into Lawndale, and I noticed gradual changes in the landscape, people’s dress, etc., as we entered the south side of Chicago. When we arrived at the church, I immediately felt welcomed as someone ushered us inside. The community was primarily African American, in contrast to my home church Beloved Downtown, which is predominantly Asian American and Caucasian American. During the service, several church members came up to pray about the violence in their community. The pastor announced several recent deaths in the church community, including two women and two young men who were shot. The service was structured similarly to my home church, with announcements, prayer, worship, and a sermon. The sermon was on forgiveness, and the audience was fairly vocal in responding to it throughout with “Amens”, laughter, and affirming sounds.

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

I appreciated the unity of the congregation and its engagement in the worship service. The church space was set up so that the chairs surrounded the speaker in a circle. This created an image of unity. In addition to being vocal, church members appeared to be comfortable touching one another for comfort, etc. The unity of the church was embodied in the actions of congregation members. Further, Lawndale Christian’s service seemed to be less strictly organized than my home church. The leadership at Beloved (and many other white American evangelical churches) works for more of a smooth “performance”. I appreciated that the service engaged the congregation instead of the leaders only trying to “perform”. This gave a space for the church to address the present needs of the community.

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

I found some of the basic cultural differences most disorienting about the worship service. For example, although I am aware of violence in Chicago because of the media, etc., it was shocking to hear about it first hand during the service and to see the congregation lament over the dead. It made me realize how frequent and widespread the violence is. Also, I was surprised to see that the head pastor was white where the majority of the congregation was African American. I would be curious to hear how he arrived at that position, and if the church members have any negative (or positive) reflections on a white leadership.

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

The service challenged the way the privileged talk about “fixing” issues of wealth disparity and violence in communities. I feel like at Wheaton we often talk about violence and poverty as if the people who live in the communities aren’t doing anything about the issues. It brought perspective for me to see the church members praying for their own community in a way more intimately knowledgeable than we are capable of. Further, the sermon on forgiveness reminded me of when Dr. Lee said about our double-standards regarding forgiveness—we applaud African Americans for forgiving their white oppressors but we don’t expect America to forgive its foreign enemies. I thought it was interesting to hear this sermon on forgiveness in the context of a low-income neighborhood following our class discussions. It reinforced some of the notions I have regarding the influence of power, race, etc. on issues of wealth and poverty.