Caila Paquin - Church visit #1

Church name: Saint Sabina

Church address: 1210 W 78^th Place

Date attended: September 7, 2014

Church category: Low income

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

Saint Sabina was like nothing I’ve ever attended. For starters, it was about three times as long as my normal service experiences. We entered for enough time to be greeted by about everyone who was making their rounds. They were all incredibly welcoming and eager to accept the Wheaton students, and alert our attention to their bulletin on raising the minimum wage. We managed to hit their unity service where both time slots come together once a month, so the church was roaring with similar friendly greetings. After spending the appropriate amount of time awestruck by their neon “Jesus” sign, we settled in for a service. Promptly we were unsettled and rose to join in the dancing and singing and general hallelujahs. This was followed by announcements by several parishioners, more dancing, the carrying in of the holy word, and a lengthy sermon. Unfortunately at this point I had to leave due to a prior commitment and an gross miscalculations of Catholic/Charismatic service times.

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

I love churches that dance. While the type of dance done at Sabina was different than most forms of dance I am used to—far more interpretive and straightforward—I nonetheless love the acceptance of this art form. Incorporating dancers into the worship experience, as they did, is something I think every church needs to adopt, and was incredibly worshipful for me. I also really enjoyed the way that people fellowshipped with one another in the beginning of our time together. You could tell they cared and enjoyed each other deeply. But above all of this, I was most intrigued by the sermon’s practicality and applicability to daily living. Michael Pfleger was not preaching on some high theological consideration, and he wasn’t reaching for the easy apples of “love each other” or “do good”—both of which are still practical and applicable in their own way. His message, instead, was very clearly targeted at the neighborhood and his people.

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

The neon “Jesus” sign. I kid, that was okay after a while. Strange. But okay. What I found most challenged was sitting through the sermon. While I appreciated its applicability to the lives of those around me, it left me feeling out of place and uncomfortable. The sermon was largely geared toward not being constrained by other’s perceptions of who you are. As a blonde woman, I understand this lesson to an extent, but I couldn’t even begin to relate to the struggles those in this low-income, largely African American audience faced, and the limitations placed on them by systems around them. When the “Amen!”s flowed around me, I sat awkwardly knowing that my upper class privilege kept me completely sheltered from those kinds of life obstacles. The other element of the service that had me wriggling in my seat a bit was its political bent. Starting with the brochure on raising minimum wage, continuing through sections of the sermon for gun control, and ending with the speech made by the supported Senator, the service held hands with politics in ways I haven’t encountered before.

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

Here is a sad but honest truth: this service was one of the first times in my life where I had a glimpse into how powerful Christ’s teachings must have been for the people in his time. For some reason my predominantly middle class, white cohorts and I don’t need sermons that speak so directly to our problems as much, or at least the needs are less pressing. The sermon here was simple, radical, and life changing. Was there some prosperity gospel tossed out there? Quite possibly. Did I agree theologically with everything that was said? Not completely. But the stakes were so high, and the gospel so relevant, I was swept away by the power of God’s work of reconciliation and redemption that I so often lose in my comfortable time with Wheaton teaching. The potential of the gospel became radical to me in a new way.