Iglesia del Pueblo – Wheaton Bible Church
27W500 North Avenue, West Chicago, IL 60185
10/25/2015
Hispanic Nondenominational
The service was both similar and different at Iglesia del Pueblo in Wheaton Bible Church. The service was similar in having worship songs, an oral message from a pastor, and prayer. The worship songs dominated the first 45 minutes of the service. The audience went back and forth between standing and sitting while being a part of the bands performance of worship songs. This was much different from the church experience I am used to where two worship songs are performed at the introduction of the service and then two songs usually conclude the service. The band played only a couple songs but extended them and broke them apart for prayer at certain points rather than playing through the entire song. All the songs were very thankful to Jesus for laying down His life for our sake. A theme appeared to be the fulfilling of the Father’s wrath towards us with Christ’s own life. I had never thought to observe any sort of theme in either worship songs or from a pastor’s message until the Christus Victor lecture recently.
What I found most interesting was the message from the pastor. After the extended period of worship songs the pastor spoke about migration. I found this interesting as it was something I personally am not used to hearing about while in church. Understanding the demographic though caused it to make sense as those in the largely Hispanic audience quite possibly could have moved to this community from a Hispanic country. I also found a connection here with the Christus Victor lecture in how the message of the service was geared to the audience who spoke primarily Spanish so probably has a strong connection to their Hispanic origins. The pastor cited 1 Peter 1 and 2 about how those who migrated were all God’s people, regardless of the territory from which they traveled. Attending this service showed me how relevant and impactful this topic could be for those who may have moved to the community from a different culture.
The most challenging part of the service was the language barrier. My Spanish is quite rusty and while I was able to follow along to a degree I still found myself lost at times during the service. Being in an environment where I could not understand the primary language highlighted the difficulties those in the audience, who primarily speak Spanish, may have being in a country where their native language is not commonly used. I gained understanding and appreciation for the hard work that goes into trying to follow along in a different language. At the same time though attending Iglesia del Pueblo showed how God’s word and the community of the church is in one understanding. I never felt too lost knowing that I was part of a community, while only for a morning, that’s message was one I could understand.
The service was based on migration and utilized Scripture from 1 Peter 1 and 2. As I mentioned before I never would have viewed this topic as so impactful but being in a setting where the audience possibly was not originally from the surrounding community showed me how relevant a message migration was to the audience. It talked about being a believer and follower of Christ as the true community. It did not matter if one was not from a certain town or country, as long as they followed Christ they were not foreigners. The message on a sense of belonging was definitely new to me, relative to my usual church setting, but a great reminder of how welcoming I should be of those who may be unfamiliar to a community.
No comments:
Post a Comment