Church Address: 27W500 North Avenue, West Chicago, Illinois 60185
Date Attended: 25 October 2015
Church Category: Different ethnic or racial demographic
Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
This service--while structurally similar to church services I am familiar with--was radically different in that it was in a different language. While I can fluently understand Spanish, it is certainly not a language I typically worship in. Interestingly, it was a missionary weekend so the service was conducted in both Spanish and English which is not the way service is done at this church on most weeks. This service was otherwise quite familiar to me: we opened with a call to worship, worshipped through music, took offering, read Scripture as a congregation, listened to service, and closed with more music. There was a lot more music incorporated into the worship than I am used it, as the initial musical worship portion of the service lasted around forty minutes.
What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
I have attended bilingual services before but really appreciated the way this service incorporated both English and Spanish. Instead of translating phrases one by one, the speaker alternated between each language fluidly. While there were some things that he said in Spanish without explicitly translating into English or vice versa, he summarized his thoughts in a way that allowed the message to ultimately be conveyed clearly in both languages. It was a beautiful way to see the organic integration of two distinct cultures into one worship service.
What did you find most challenging or disorienting about the worship service?
What did you find most challenging or disorienting about the worship service?
The most disorienting thing about this service was that it was bilingual. Additionally, while the pastor did his best to integrate both Spanish and English into the service without repeating each sentence verbatim, there were some scenarios in which I thought the message was conveyed better in the other language.
What aspects of scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?
Since I have spent most of my life attending churches where the majority of the congregation shares a primary language with me and lives a similar lifestyle as me, visiting a church that had a wide variety of backgrounds was very novel. The sermon discussed the topic of immigration--thus this variety was even more apparent. At one point, the pastor asked members of the congregation to raise their hands when he named their country of origin. An enormous number of countries was represented. When Paul speaks of unity in the early church, I often forget that there were many differences between the members of the congregation. Language barriers seemed like a large difference to overcome but in comparison to the ethnic divisions and the associated stereotypes that the early church had to overcome, this seemed to be less hindering. I enjoyed being able to participate in a worship service that integrated two distinct cultures in a way that respected both while still achieving an overall sense of unity as church.
Since I have spent most of my life attending churches where the majority of the congregation shares a primary language with me and lives a similar lifestyle as me, visiting a church that had a wide variety of backgrounds was very novel. The sermon discussed the topic of immigration--thus this variety was even more apparent. At one point, the pastor asked members of the congregation to raise their hands when he named their country of origin. An enormous number of countries was represented. When Paul speaks of unity in the early church, I often forget that there were many differences between the members of the congregation. Language barriers seemed like a large difference to overcome but in comparison to the ethnic divisions and the associated stereotypes that the early church had to overcome, this seemed to be less hindering. I enjoyed being able to participate in a worship service that integrated two distinct cultures in a way that respected both while still achieving an overall sense of unity as church.
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