Hannah Hacker - Church visit #2

Church name: Community Christian Church – East Aurora Campus

Church address: 76 S. LaSalle Street, Aurora, IL 60505

Date attended: October 25^th, 2015

Church category: Lower Socioeconomic Demographic

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

             This Sunday I attended Community Christian Church, whose members are primarily Latinos from a low-income neighborhood. Since most of the congregation speaks Spanish, the service was bilingual. Unfortunately I missed the first 15 minutes of the service, but entered just as the sermon was beginning. Pastor Obe Arellano was out of town, so they projected a recording of his message on a large screen at the front of the darkened gathering space of about 60 people. He preached by first speaking a phrase in Spanish, and then in English, transitioning seamlessly between the two languages. After about a 25 minute sermon, a mixture of Latinos and whites led bilingual worship, singing some songs in English and some in both Spanish and English. The service ended with communion, led in person by the pastor’s wife. Other than the difference in languages, the recording of the sermon rather than live preaching, and the informal worship space, the service was very similar to my regular context.  

 

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

            What I found most appealing about the service was the use of two languages, Spanish and English, to read and preach the Word of God. While my Spanish language skills are very limited, I did notice some subtle differences between the words the pastor used in English and in Spanish. Since he contrasted factual knowledge of God and his will with a relational knowledge of God, it was interesting to hear him primarily use the Spanish verb “conocer” which carries the relational component of knowledge that has no perfect equivalent in the English language. It was also interesting to hear the pastor use decisions about education and jobs as instances where people desperately want to know God’s will, because these are the same decisions that people even from a higher socioeconomic demographic face.

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

             A few aspects of the service were challenging. First of all, the switching between languages during the sermon and praise time sometimes made it difficult to follow along. It was hard to avoid losing the message of the sermon while trying to decipher phrases of Spanish and fill in the blanks with the English while the preaching continued so rapidly. Secondly, I was not expecting so many of the leadership positions to be filled by non-Latinos even though the congregation is primarily Latino. In a conversation after the service, I learned that this relatively new branch of the many church “Community church” umbrella began as the offshoot of a community development ministry to what they describe as the “underserved” Latino community of East Aurora. Finally, the televised message seemed much less personal than a sermon delivered by a preacher who is physically present, and therefore able to connect directly with the congregation.

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

             The use of both Spanish and English in this service acted as a concrete reminder that God is not limited to understanding or communicating through English. As some of our recent class readings have emphasized, the Bible does not have an exclusive revealed language, even though worshiping in the same language context can generate a subconscious belief that one language’s translation is superior over another. Worshipping in another language brought to life the theological tenet that the Bible is still the Word of God regardless of what language it is spoken or written in. Additionally, the message about depending on God and needing to know His will took on greater significance in this church with a lower socio-economic demographic than my regular context because a congregation with fewer financial resources and networks of support possesses a different understanding of daily dependence on God.