Krista Schuh- Church Visit #1

Krista Schuh- Church Visit #1

Church name: Karen Baptist Church

Church address: 2001 Lakeview Dr. Wheaton, IL

Date attended: Sep 13^th, 2015

Church category: Different ethnic or racial demographic

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

I attended a worship service at a Karen Baptist church with the family that I tutor in ESL. It was very different than my regular context on the surface, but still unexpectedly similar in many ways. The congregation used another church’s facility after their service was over, and started the service around 1:30pm (much later than any church I’ve attended). The 40-person congregation was seemingly wholly comprised of Karen people, similar to my family of Burmese refugees who had been living in Thailand before moving to the States. Though I couldn’t understand the words being spoken (the entire service was in Karen), the structure of the service was very familiar. First, there was worship (about 7 songs, a mix of hymns and other lively, contemporary worship), then the children were dismissed, the offering was taken, and then the sermon was preached (which was also slightly longer than sermons I’m accustomed to). After the sermon, the kids came back in and many sang a worship song together, then the whole congregation sang the doxology (again, in Karen) and was dismissed to help tear down.

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

The intensely communal aspect of the church was something very appealing and awe-inspiring to me. About half of the non-child congregation was up at the front as they sang worship songs. Even during the service itself, members would occasionally speak up and say something. Whether it was a page reference or a comment of great depth, I’ll never know, but the ability for church members to do that was very interesting and encouraging to me. It was clear that this is a tight-knit community of believers who care deeply about each other. After the service, nearly the entire congregation stuck around to eat McDonald’s together in honor of one of the member’s birthdays. Even though I was very clearly an outsider as the only white American there, they welcomed me in and insisted that I eat with them. A meal from McDonald’s has never seemed so appealing as it did in the company of those incredibly hospitable brothers and sisters.

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

Though simple and probably fairly obvious, the most challenging part about the service was that I could not understand the specifics of it as a result of the language difference. Though I understood the gist of the service, it was impossible for me to enter in at a level of depth with the brothers and sisters standing near me because of my inability to understand the service.

Apart from that obvious challenge, it was disorienting to see a group of people so culturally different from our society’s norm worshipping in largely the same way as the surrounding majority society. Though this was encouraging to me in some ways, it also brought many questions as to why they were choosing to follow the model of typical western churches. Of course this isn’t wrong, but it disoriented me nonetheless as I think of their experiences and unity as refugees.

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

Though this is a common theme when around believers who are unlike yourself, I was nonetheless struck by how amazing it is to be a part of the global Church. If the other members of the church are anything like the refugee family that I spend time with, the people I had the honor of worshiping alongside are some of the most persistent and loving people I’ve ever met. Though I could not understand the words they were speaking, about half of the songs sung were familiar melodies, including the doxology. It’s incredible to think of the incredibly strong bond we have in Christ with people that we often don’t even know exist. Though I did not directly hear or understand this from the message of the church itself, experiencing their church service with them led me to a better understanding of and excitement for the time when every tribe, tongue, and nation comes before the throne of the Lamb of God and worships him.