Stewardship at First Baptist Church of Ogden

First of all, I want to apologize for not blogging the past couple weeks. I have had some issues with my apartment and finances that have caused me to be temporarily at a couple friends' apartment. Hopefully all of this is sorted out soon. At any rate, I'm back for the blog.

The Sunday before last, I went to First Baptist Church, part of the American Baptist Churches USA. The American Baptist Churches USA traces its roots back to the 1600's in Massachusetts. The church is considered a mainline church and historically a progressive church in regards to race relations.

Beliefs of the American Baptist Churches USA:

• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that Jesus was the Messiah.
• Christ's death and resurrection saved mankind from sin.
• The Bible is the Word of God and final authority on matters of faith.
• Belief in the priesthood of all believers.
• Avoid the use of creeds and allow members to be guided by the Spirit with interpretation of the scriptures.
• Believe in the autonomy of the local church.
• Practice a believer's baptism by immersion for those old enough to understand the sacrament.
• Practice open communion using bread and grape juice as symbols of the body and blood of Jesus.
• Ordain women to the ministry.

In addition, this congregation is united with the local Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), another mainline Protestant church which currently doesn't have a church building they meet in. This church doesn't meet separately with the Baptists in Ogden, but instead has merged it's congregation with the Baptist congregation. As such, I'm not going to include the additional information of this congregation as the service looked exclusively Baptist, and that is the main identity of this church.

So how was it?

Atmosphere:

First Baptist Church of Ogden is a stunning example of Federal architecture. The building is large, the only religious structures that dwarf it in Ogden are the Ogden LDS Temple and St. Joseph's Catholic Church. It's a red brick building that looks like it fell out of New England onto Utah's soil.

The interior was large and very traditional looking with white washed walls, pilasters, crown molding, dark wood pews, a simplistic sanctuary with room for a small choir and a pulpit. The sanctuary had a screen down to project the lyrics for the hymns.

Overall, the atmosphere was stunning. I would definitely go back just for that.

The People:

We got there right before the service started, so there wasn't much chance for people to mingle with us. The usher was nice, a few people introduced themselves and were nice to us. The congregation was mostly made up of middle aged to elderly people and children and were mostly white. They seemed really nice for the most part.

I wish that we could have interacted with them more, but given the lack of interaction, I still felt welcomed.

The Service/The Message:

The structure of the service wasn't the typical structure I'm used to in Baptist services. The pastor himself said that it was a unique service for that Sunday to highlight that it was Stewardship Sunday.

Because of the unusual structure of the service, I merged these two sections together as there wasn't a distinction between the two.

First they talked about how we show stewardship for creation. The pastor read from Genesis where God gave man dominion over all the earth. He then talked about how we have a responsibility to the earth and must care for and conserve it. This was followed by a hymn praising the Lord's world.

After this, they talked about how we must steward our talents. To demonstrate this, the pastor showed a quilt that was going to be given to the homeless. They sang a hymn about giving all your service and future to God, then the pastor dedicated the quilt. During the prayer, he said we didn't know who it would go to, whether they were believers, or of a different faith, or even an atheist. He didn't seem as comfortable saying the atheist statement, but nonetheless included it in the prayer.

After this, they talked about stewarding children. The youth pastor brought the kids of the congregation up and gave each of them a piggy bank with ten pennies. He told them that it was their choice what they did with it, they could take the stopper out and take the money out or put money in it. He said if they brought the bank back unbroken, there would be a reward later. After this, they sang another hymn about blessings.

Next, they sang a song about offerings and talked about stewarding finances. The pastor talked about how silly it is that people don't have an issue giving money to a movie theater, sporting event, concert, etc. But they're not happy to give money to the church and see it as a burden. He then said that investing in the local church was the  best investment you could ever do in this life or the next. He said it was a privilege to pay tithing. I hate this argument. They make it seem like there's nothing more important than giving money to the church and that giving money to this organization is the same as giving to God. Of course, what better time to take up a collection than after this message? And that's exactly what they did.

They then sang the Protestant Doxology, they took up another collection for the needy for Christmas, then the pastor asked for various concerns and celebrations from the people in the congregation. After he'd collected all their concerns, he gave an impromptu prayer talking about the needs of the community.

After this, there was another hymn and served communion. Communion was done using matzo crackers and grape juice. The pastor said the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and the deacons passed around the crackers, then everyone ate it together. Afterward, the pastor said the words over a chalice of grape juice. The deacons then passed small, plastic cups of grape juice to the congregation and then everyone drank it together.

After this was another hymn and then a benediction over the congregation.

Overall, it was an interesting structure for a service. I enjoyed seeing it, and the communion portion was like a hybrid of Catholic and Baptist traditions which was interesting.

Overall Experience:

Of the Baptist services I've been to, it was the nicest one and the most uplifting. The people were friendly, and the messages, for the most part, were lovely. However, I've grown very weary of Baptist and Evangelical services in general and am not planning to return to one for a very long time.

Additional Notes:

Only 3 religions left! Stay tuned for some awesome announcements!

Until next time, peace be with you.

Returning to the blog with the Hill Air Force Base Protestant Chapel

I took a week off of the blog for mental health reasons. But I'm back and ready to tackle these last 10 or so with gusto! A couple weeks ago, I attended the Hill Air Force Base Protestant Chapel, a non-denominational mixture of various denominations serving the men and women who serve our country. (Fun sentence.)

How was the experience?

Atmosphere:

The chapel is on Hill Air Force Base. I'm a civilian, so I had to have a friend of mine take me who is in the Air Force as his guest. It was quite a fun experience going back to the Base. My grandpa was retired Air Force, so I'd been a few times when I was younger, plus a few field trips as a kid and some additional times with other Air Force friends. But I haven't been in at least five or six years.

The Base is exactly what you'd expect from a military base, lots of uniform, unmarked, nondescript buildings with various functions of both common knowledge and classified knowledge, housing complexes formed from the same cookie cutter blueprints, and then out of nowhere, a Popeye's Chicken. I took no pictures of the Base because I don't know what the rules are with that and better to err on the side of caution.

The chapel itself is a pretty nondescript building to match many of the others. But inside, it's really pretty, done with a modernist style

There's a basic altar in the center for communion, a cross in front of a curtain. I'm assuming the baptismal font is behind this curtain. There's also a pulpit on either side of the sanctuary and an area for the band behind one of the pulpits. The true beauty of the chapel is the modern, abstract stained glass windows.

I asked permission to take a couple photos, this is what I got.

Overall, very simple atmosphere as I expected on an Air Force base. But it was still very elegant and lovely.

The People:

There were only a handful of people there. Many of them seemed to be military wives with the kids. There were a few who definitely had the feel of being in the service. One of the chaplains came over and started talking to us.

He was a very sweet man, very soft spoken and radiated kindness. His background is Baptist, but he serves as a non-denominational chaplain for the military.

There was also a an in his early 20's from the choir who spoke to me. He was very nice, too. Had a sort of wide eyed idealism about him that I enjoyed and miss about myself.

In general, the people seemed like very nice, typical people. Nothing of major note to say, other than most of them are military or from military families.

The Service:

Now, the primary reason I went is because I was told that it was essentially three different chaplains of three different Christian denominations trying to merge their different church practices and messages into one hybrid service. I was excited to see this for many reasons.

But, that's apparently the morning service. I went to the evening service. The evening service is run primarily by the Baptist chaplain who spoke with us, but also co-run by a chaplain from another denomination.

As such, the service followed a Baptist format pretty strictly. It had an opening prayer, a series of contemporary Christian songs, then a sermon. There were no frills to the service, and nothing I haven't seen in a number of other churches.

I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't what I was expecting. But it was still fun to see.

The Message:

The sermon was on the Lord's Prayer with the focus being on the line "our daily bread." The chaplain began by talking about a canned food drive and how that was something that they were really focusing on.

He then talked about how we are an affluent people and most of us have food in abundance. Most of us will never know what it's like not to have food and to wonder where our next meal is coming from. But that it is the poor who know just how vital praying for daily bread is.

He told a few stories about praying for food in desperate times and how God miraculously provided for these people. These stories to me are always charming and definitely fill you with a feel good optimism, but my realist nature popped in with what always comes to mind when I hear faith promoting stories like that, Why does God dote on these people who need food, but not on the millions of truly destitute people living in abject poverty, many of whom will die of starvation. Many of these people are Christians, many are of other faiths. The only thing most of them ever did wrong was simply being born in the wrong part of the world at the wrong time. Why does God care so much for these English orphans in this Victorian era story the chaplain told, but not about modern kids starving in the horn of Africa? Why does God care that missionaries in China get food when they're hungry and down on their luck, but not that millions in China live on less than a dollar a day?

He then moved onto another portion of the sermon I was completely behind, the focus is on OUR daily bread. That it isn't about just feeding our own selves. That we must feed and share with our brothers and sisters. That it is our duty to share our abundance with those who have nothing. I want to hear more like this from the pulpit and less about people being rotten sinners who deserve nothing but the eternal flames of Hell. I want to hear less about how wicked gays are or how those who watch porn are going to Hell, and more about what we can do here and now to alleviate unjust suffering in this world. Because I promise, that would be the primary focus of Jesus if he were alive today.

Overall, I liked the message. The chaplain seemed very hard to try to keep the topic as general as possible due to the fact that it was an interdenominational service.

Overall Experience:

This wasn't what I was expecting. It ended up being much more of a Baptist-like service. But, I did enjoy it, it was a different experience going to a military base. Just more different in tone that way. Hard to explain in writing. I am grateful my friend got me on base to see it.

Additional Notes:

We're in the home stretch. Only a handful let. Thanks to all of you who have kept up with me. I'm very lucky and very grateful to all of you!

This coming week, I will be (hopefully) attending the mosque in Salt Lake. I'm very much looking forward to that.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Faith Baptist Church: An Independent Baptist Church

Last Sunday, I went to Faith Baptist Church, an independent church here in Northern Utah. From reading their website, I wasn't terribly interested in checking them out as I have already surveyed an independent, fundamentalist Baptist church. (See my blog on Berean Baptist Church.) But this church was the childhood church of a friend of mine who comes to many of these services with me. I felt because of that, we needed to go here so he could come full circle.

I will very briefly outline Faith Baptist Church's beliefs as they're very similar to Berean Baptist's beliefs.

• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief Jesus was the Messiah who died for the sins of mankind, was resurrected, and will come again to judge mankind and reign forever.
• Mankind is totally depraved without any good in him.
• Mankind is saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus without works.
• The Bible is the Word of God, without error in its original form. The King James Version is the only endorsed and acceptable translation for English speakers.
• Practice baptism for those who have accepted Jesus as their savior. Baptism is a symbol of dying and rising in Christ and required for membership in the Church. Baptism is done only by full immersion.
• Practice communion as a symbol of joining in Christ's atonement.
• Belief in a literal 6 day creation period 6,000 years ago. Any other opinion or theory is condemned.
• Autonomy of the local church.
• Only sex between a man and woman lawfully wed is allowed. All other forms of sexuality condemned including porn, homosexuality, bisexuality, etc.

So what was it like?

Atmosphere:

The exterior of Faith Baptist is pretty plain. A beige building with a cross on the top of it. There is a small K - 6 school next to the chapel, and a sign in front of the church with various sayings that alternate on it. The message on it this time was, "Grace is free, but it's not cheap." Which doesn't logically make any sense, but whatever.

The interior (which there is a picture of, but it's not great quality) was contemporary style, white walls, lots of beige and off white accent colors, it reminded me of the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, but much more beautifully decorated. The chapel was decorated the same way with a stage that was about 6 feet off the ground with wooden stairs leading up the front of it. In the back of the stage was a choir loft and a curtain. with a cross above it. My friend told me that the baptismal font was behind the curtain.

Along the walls of the church were a bunch of flags from various countries. It turns out this represents where they have missionaries. I guess they're a heavily mission oriented church. Some of the countries represented included: The US, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Russia, Germany, South Korea, Kenya, Israel, California (apparently it's own country), Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, Australia.

Overall, I liked the interior decorations of the church, while the outside was very simplistic and kind of bland.

The People:

The people were nice to us. They ranged the gamut of backgrounds, young and old, many races, people dressed in suits and dresses and some dressed more casually. I was surprised at how many of them there were, a couple hundred at least. Most churches I've been around here to have had only a couple dozen people. A few have had more people, obviously the LDS church, the Catholic church, and a couple of the Evangelical churches I've been to. I wasn't expecting to see so many

Pretty much everyone around us came and introduced themselves. This was the extent of the pleasantries with most. Overall, they were nice, diverse, and a large congregation.

The Service:

The service was fairly typical of what I expect from Baptist churches. It started with someone welcoming everybody, a song, then they had a little speech where the person said we needed to pray for missionaries, and spread the gospel, that dying while serving a mission is the best way to die, but we don't want our missionaries to because they have work to do for Jesus. He then said that Israel needs our prayers right now because of what's going on with them and Palestine. They praised Israel for what they were doing and then took up a collection. It's unclear by what he said if some of the money was going to help Israel or really where the money was going. But this part started me off on the wrong foot with them.

After that there were some more hymns. The hymns were traditional style hymns performed on a piano with the words projected onto two screens to follow along. We sang a few of them, with the choir singing in the choir loft in the back.

After the hymns, they read the scripture which was from Matthew and spoke of not casting your pearls before swine. For the reading, everyone stood up and then sat down right after it was read.

The pastor then delivered his sermon, which I will talk about in the next section. After that there was a prayer then an altar call.

Overall, a fairly typical service for low church Protestants. No real surprises as far as structure of the service.

The Message:

The sermon was on the topic of not giving that which is holy away to the wickedness of this world. That was only very loosely the topic. The sermon actually jumped around a lot from one hot button issue to the next.

It started with him saying that Satan is actively pursuing you. Satan doesn't want you to hear this message, and that him and his forces seek to ruin you and separate you from God.

He then said that all life is sacred. He went on this tirade about abortion, saying that there is never a time when it is justified. He then said that once you start killing babies, you move to killing old people.

Then he said we're all made in the image of God. He said that you see a homeless person on the street corner begging for change. And you know that person could go help themselves because there are programs out there to help them, but they don't. But you still need to feel compassion for them because they're made in the image of God. This was quite an awful message to hear coming form the pulpit of a Christian church and a message I could never see Jesus promoting. Much of the message of Jesus was about helping the poor, not condemning them as being unwilling to change their lives, then turning around and dressing that up with saying, "But be compassionate towards them." Compassion would be to sympathize with them, to go out of your way to help them, not judge and condemn them. Most of us aren't too far away from being homeless. A few lost paychecks and one trip to the unemployment line can send many of us there.

After this, he talked about how we shouldn't think we know better than God. He talked about how God formed stars just by saying a word. This isn't how stars form, but I can see the point he was trying to make.

He then moved on to talk about sexuality, which was quite random in the sermon. He said that sex is sacred and that our culture doesn't view sex correctly. He said that he wanted to be frank and let the youth know what was and wasn't sex. He said that anything sexual at all done outside of marriage was fornication. This meant masturbation, looking at porn, touching someone else's body, watching someone perform a sexual act in front of you, homosexuality, premarital sex, oral sex, all of it was equally sex and equally sinful. He said if you commit any of these sexual sins, you're sinning against God, yourself, and your future spouse. In a sense, you're cheating on your future spouse and not bringing yourself to the marriage altar undefiled.

This message really bothers me for several reasons. First off, it condemns sexuality which is something natural and healthy in humans. Sex is written into our DNA and is a primal instinct the vast majority of us have that is impossible to truly repress. Everybody has sexual thoughts, everybody masturbates. People often lie about it because of societal pressures, particularly religious pressures, will lie about masturbating, but it is something all humans enjoy. Most of my generation has watched pornography fairly regularly from adolescence onward, again with a large portion of people lying about it due to religious conviction. Many people will not make it to their weddings virgins, many who claim to have done so actually didn't, but lied about it.

This is a big problem I have with condemning sex. I promise you this pastor has masturbated. I promise you every member of that congregation has at some time in their lives. I promise you that that building is full of people being hypocritical and lying about their sexual activity. Condemning sex doesn't actually stop people from having sex. Usually all it does is make people lie about sex and fills people with shame and guilt over something they shouldn't.

I grew up in a culture that said all these same things about sex and felt like I was a monster because I was gay, masturbated, watched porn, and ended up losing my virginity at 15. But I got very good at lying about all of it. I felt like I was a fraud and I was convinced that I was the only one like this. Then I discovered that everyone was like this. We all had a sex drive, we all were masturbating, most if not all of us were looking at porn, a etc. The day I realized all of this guilt and shame I had felt, the times it had driven me to depression was for something everybody else was doing I became quite upset.

And that was another big problem I had with that message, was that it was targeted towards the youth of the congregation. Most of these young people will believe anything you tell them and they will end up feeling depressed, some might become suicidal if you tell them these things. Some will act out and figure if they're going to go to Hell for masturbation, they might as well do the rest. Many will seek unhealthy avenues of sexual release. Ironically, many of the youth will explore avenues the church doesn't want them to because they view sex in this way.

Overall, this sermon touched on every major topic that bothers me about modern Christianity. It left me sort of angry and didn't make me feel very positively about this church and what it teaches people.

Overall Experience:

The church was pretty inside, the music was decent, the people nice, the message was atrocious. That's pretty much all of my feelings for this church in one sentence. 

Meet me at Calvary Baptist Church, part of the Southern Baptist Convention

Today I went to Calvary Baptist Church, a church here in Ogden which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention has nearly 16 million members nationwide making it the second largest church in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church, the largest Protestant church in the country, and the largest Baptist church in the world. Chances are, when Baptists come to your mind, you're thinking of the Southern Baptists. There are many other Baptist groups and independent Baptist organizations, but none with the numbers, outreach, or political clout of the Southern Baptist Convention. So who are the Southern Baptists? Where do they come from? What do they believe?

The origins of the Southern Baptist Convention actually stem from our country's more controversial past. It began when the Baptist churches from the Southern United States decided to split with those from the Northern United States as the North refused to ordain missionaries who were slave owners. The Southern Baptist Convention maintained a theology that promoted slavery and later racial segregation. This caused many black Baptists to split off and form their own groups, the largest of which today is the National Baptist Convention, USA.

Starting in the second half of the 20th century, the Southern Baptist Convention began moving away from its roots in race and segregation and began actively engaging minorities to bring them into the group. Today, the church has no official racial element to it, and the current president of the organization is a black man.

Beliefs of the Southern Baptist Convention:

• The Southern Baptist Convention is a Protestant church that is Evangelical. This means that they believe that the Bible is the Word of God, the sole guide on matters of faith and doctrine, that members are to be born again in the Spirit by accepting Jesus as their Savior, and that they have a personal relationship with Jesus.
• The Bible is the source of their creeds and their creeds can be altered based on what the Bible teaches.
• Each person is accountable to God alone and nobody else is accountable for another person's salvation.
• Priesthood of all believers. In other words, there is no middle man between God and humanity, each person can access God fully on their own.
• Mankind is a fallen creature devoid of good. All people are guilty under God's Law and deserve God's wrath and punishment in eternal Hell.
• Salvation from the wrath of God is by the grace of God through faith alone. Works cannot save.
• Salvation is through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus's atonement paid for the sins of mankind.
• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that baptism is required as an act of obedience to God's Word, and a symbol of dying to your own life and rising new in Christ. Baptism must be done by full immersion only by those old enough to accept Jesus as their Savior.
• Practice the Lord's Supper to remember the sacrifice of Jesus and draw closer to him. This act is simply a memorial and the bread and wine (grape juice) have no actual presence of Jesus within them but are symbolic of the grace he provides.
• Autonomy of the local church. This means that each church in the Southern Baptist Convention is self governing and does not have to answer to a hierarchy. The convention exists to unify congregations with other similar congregations.
• The Southern Baptist Convention leans towards conservative politics and traditional gender roles. Homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage, polyamory, pornography, and extra-marital affairs are condemned. Women are not ordained, though it is said they belong to the priesthood of all believers.

So, what was Calvary Baptist Church like?

Atmosphere:

Calvary Baptist Church is tucked away in an unassuming part of downtown Ogden. It's a red brick building that's fairly traditional with some modern aspects, particularly the steeple and the relief sculpture over the entrance of the church.

The interior of the church was interesting to me because it was almost exactly how I envisioned it to be. I've never gone into a new church and had it match my preconceived image of what it would look like until today. That's always been part of the fun of this journey is seeing how reality compares with what's in my head.

The interior was a white bricked room with wooden pews and a slight partition that separated the main part of the chapel from the entry way. The walls had no windows except for a couple of smaller windows way up at the top of the building behind the sanctuary, which were covered by closed, vertical blinds.

The central focus of the room was the pulpit which ha a small table in front of it that had a simple wooden cross, a Bible opened in front of it, and two collection plates. Along the front of the table was a table runner that said, "Jesus lives forever."

Overall, the atmosphere was, as I stated, exactly what I expected: simple, centered on a pulpit with the Bible out on display, and unassuming.

The People:

The people were very nice. They all went out of their way to greet us and ask us questions. Most of them were elderly and white (a typical trend of most of the churches around here) though there were a couple younger families of different ethnicities. The congregation wasn't very large, only a couple dozen people at the very most including us. It's Summer, so the size of the congregation is bound to be smaller, but I don't get the impression this congregation is very big at all.

Overall, they seemed like nice people who had conviction in what they believed.

The Service:

The service was typical of churches with an Evangelical bend. It opened with a prelude of music played on a piano, followed by a prayer offered by a member of the congregation, then they welcomed everybody, including us as visitors. After that, a woman was asked to extend a greeting to everybody, she talked for a minute about how it's been 100 years since World War I began, which was very random and was not related to anything religious or spiritual any way. Just sort of some random trivia about World War I given just for fun.

Afterward, another hymn was sung accompanied by piano music. I have to say, the music was really simplistic and traditional and I wasn't familiar with any of them sung.

After the hymn, they said another prayer and took up a collection. Everybody then stood up and recited a scripture together from the Gospel of Luke. The pastor then went to the pulpit and began his sermon.

After the sermon, another hymn was sung, then a prayer offered, and the congregation recited Proverbs 3:5 in unison, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

The service was very dry and focused on the sermon, as I've come to expect with most Evangelical churches. I do have to say that I liked that this church didn't rely on any kind of gimmick to attract members, but instead seemed more focused on its roots and what it taught. Compared to some other denominations of the same type, it is nice to see.

The Message:

The Gospel reading was from Like where Jesus asks Peter to tell him who people say he is. Peter replies that some say he is John the Baptist, Elijah, or another prophet. He then asks Peter who he thinks he is. Peter replies that he thinks Jesus is the Christ.

The sermon was really repetitive, with the pastor covering several points over and over again. I'm going to try to condense his message into a more reader friendly message than is in my notes.

Essentially, he said that people have different opinions about Jesus and these opinions can't all be right, we must only believe what God says about Jesus. The most important thing in life is to know the truth about Jesus. This is our assignment on this Earth. What God says about Jesus is all that matters, God gave us his Word (the scriptures), and his Word says that the scriptures are reliable. Therefore, we must believe what the Bible says about Jesus, and not other people's opinions about Jesus. We need to come to him and get saved.

There wasn't much more to the sermon than that, just the same points made again and again, sometimes with a little more detail added to them.

Overall, the sermon wasn't anything I wasn't expecting. I've heard all of this before many times in different churches and other moments in my life.

Overall Experience:

This is the only church I've been to so far that was exactly how I envisioned it to be, as though they pulled it straight from my imagination. That was surreal. Honestly, I don't have much to say about this group that I haven't said about similar groups in my previous blogs.

Additional Notes:

I'm really enjoying this experience, and I've decided I want to take it to the next level. Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to look into next year's project, which will be on similar lines. My goal for next year is to travel to every state and record (in film or written form I haven't decided) various religious experiences in other states. I will probably be turning to crowdfunding for this project.

Let me know your opinions and suggestions on this idea.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Sunday at Washington Heights Church

Sorry for the delay in getting this up. I started a new work schedule this week and I'm still adjusting to it. This past Sunday, I went to Washington Heights Church, which is an Evangelical church of the Baptist tradition. It is officially a member of the Conservative Baptist Association.

What was it like?

Atmosphere:

I went to this church 10 years ago when a friend of mine from school invited me to it. A lot has changed in 10 years. First off, the building(s) are completely different. When I went the first time, it was a huge building with a chapel that had stadium seating and a stage in the center and classrooms off the main chapel. It was big and reminded me of the churches you see on TV with the various televangelists.

Now, there are three buildings, one appears to be a children's chapel/Sunday school, another that is, what appears to be classrooms and a small coffee shop. This building had a really cool design in the bricks of a Jesus fish.

Sandwiched between these two buildings is the main chapel. Unlike the grand chapel that used to stand there, it's now a much smaller chapel, no stadium seating, a stage that now looks like a concert stage, all together, it no longer had the chapel feel of the original, but now looks like a Christian rock arena.

I preferred the old building. It was very beautiful and, while modern, still felt like a chapel and a church. This building just felt like it was trying to be some other church now, like Alpine or the Genesis Project. I feel like the community lost something it had once had and replaced it with something trying to be something else.

In all, the atmosphere was fine, it was modern and cool, but it wasn't what it once was in its glory days.

The People:

The people here were very friendly, and there were a lot of them ranging in age from elderly to youth. There was a coffee bar set up with some decent coffee. Several people came up and introduced themselves before and after the service. One was an usher, one was a nice young lady who told us to take as many cookies as we wanted from the coffee bar and joked around a bit about it. After the service, a group of people came up to us and introduced themselves and asked a number of questions.

In all, they were very friendly and seemed very sincere in wanting to get to know us.

The Service:

Nothing exceptionally remarkable about the service other than on the chairs were business cards that said, "I am Jesus." That's right, this church has business cards for Jesus. It started with a hymn, which was a standard Christian rock hymn.

After the hymn, they had communion. They said a prayer over the bread and grape juice, then the ushers passed trays around that had small cups of grape juice lined on them and small crackers in the center of the tray. Everyone took one of each and waited to take them all together.

After that, there was another hymn and then a sermon.

After the sermon, there was a video featuring a bunch of children. I'm not entirely sure what this video was about, but I could tell they were asking money for some kind of education program for children. The way it was framed, it sounded like the children's salvation depended on this program. I found that quite interesting, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The Message:

The sermon was on the story of Jesus among the teachers in the Temple. The story basically goes that when Jesus was 12, he and his family went to the Temple in Jerusalem for Passover, and Mary and Joseph left without Jesus and didn't realize it. When they come back, Jesus tells them that they should have expected him to be in his father's house.

The person giving the sermon said that this story shows us that Jesus doesn't fit into our boxes and that he's a confusing figure.

He then talked about how Judaism doesn't have a concept of God as Father like Christianity has and only sees him as a father of their nation. This is entirely untrue. Jews have the same emphasis on God as their father as Christians do. Christians place more emphasis on it in many ways, but the concept nevertheless is present and strong in Judaism.

There's this trend among Evangelical Christians in the US to talk about Judaism extensively. While I'm happy that Christians are exploring their Jewish roots, as there should be a lot more of that, I feel the methodology of this often, but not always, misses the mark. Christians don't tend to approach Judaism as its own complete religion with its own rich heritage completely independent of Christian dogma, but as the prequel to Jesus. As such, they often get things wrong about Judaism by trying to project Jesus onto every aspect of it. Jesus was molded by Judaism, not the other way around. Can you go back and reinterpret the Jewish stories and scriptures to fit the Jesus narrative, yes, Christians have done it for centuries. But in doing so, you miss the entire point of these stories in their original form and what they have taught Jews for thousands of years.

To put it in better perspective, Islam comes from the same tradition as Judaism and Christianity and shares common stories with them. If Muslims started to interpret Christian scripture their own way to prove that Christianity was all along pointing to Muhammad, Christians would probably feel a little outraged. This is the same thing that Christianity does to Judaism when it doesn't respect Judaism as a whole tradition with its own merits.

He then talked about how Jesus confused Mary and Joseph with this story and that they didn't understand what he meant. He then explained that Jesus often acted exactly contrary to how people expected him to. He also explains that Jesus and the concept of God itself can be very disturbing and hard to deal with.

He mentioned that bad things happen to good people and to think that if you believe in God and live well that nothing bad will happen to you is foolish, yet many seem to think that's how it will be. He mentioned several tragedies that befell some Christians who did missionary work in Africa as an example. I was liking where this was going as I often think modern Christianity overlooks the hard questions and he was at least touching on them. Then he dropped the ball at the end by saying, just have faith in God, and don't worry about it. I will say though, that at least he was addressing that there is a darker side of Christianity and exposing people to it and opening up the conversation a bit.

Overall, not a bad sermon, in spite its flaws.

Overall Experience:

Overall, I miss the old Washington Heights Church and felt this current incarnation was basically trying to be like a bunch of newer churches in the area. That being said, it wasn't an unpleasant experience, just deja vu.

Additional Notes:

There won't be a church this upcoming week as I will be attending the Utah Pride Festival and it is also a friend's birthday on Sunday. But don't worry, there will be another blog coming your way very soon. I have a few good groups lined up. Also, expect some kind of video blog this week to fill the void.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Washington Heights Church, here I come

I was going to do Good Friday at Washington Heights Church, but the plans got cancelled last minute. So, I'm just doing a normal Sunday there instead.

I have already done a pre-service blog about Washington Heights Church, and don't want to rehash that. I realize that it talks about Good Friday, but I'm just going to provide a link for anyone interested here:

http://52weeks52churches.blogspot.com/2014/04/next-stop-good-friday-at-washington.html

Next stop: Good Friday at Washington Heights Church

Good Friday is a coming. Good Friday is the second day of the Triduum in Christianity, again, the most holy days on the Christian calendar.

Good Friday, sometimes called Great Friday or Great and Holy Friday, is celebrated by, the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, many Baptists, many Evangelicals, many Charismatics, almost all Christian denominations.

Good Friday solemnly commemorates the crucifixion and burial of Jesus of Nazareth. For Christians, this day marks the day that Christ died for their sins, therefore is central to their belief.

Celebrations vary widely in the Christian world. These include: commemorative Masses or liturgies that remember his death, partaking in communion, plays depicting the death of Jesus, reading of Scriptures and hearing sermons on the sacrifice of Jesus, adoration of the cross, walking the Stations of the Cross, etc.

I will be attending Washington Heights Church (formerly known as Washington Heights Baptist Church) for Good Friday services.

Washington Heights Church is the closest I am going to find to a Christian megachurch in my area. It is a very large church building located in South Ogden, and part of a larger Heights Church Community, a group of congregations in Utah that formally belong to the Conservative Baptist Association of America, which is a loose confederation of regional, autonomous churches. This means the local churches are self governing and not controlled by any outside influence.

The Heights Community has three churches it refers to as campuses, one in South Ogden, one in Bountiful, and one in Ogden serving the Latino community. The Heights Church, though officially Baptist, has in recent years, seemed to drift further from that label and embracing a more general Evangelical Christian label.

Their beliefs are fairly general Baptist/Evangelical beliefs:

• The Bible is the inerrant Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and the final authority on matters of faith and doctrine.
• Belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God in three Persons (the Trinity).
• Christ died for the sins of all mankind.
• Those who trust in Jesus Christ and accept him as their Lord and Savior are regenerated and saved.
• Salvation is through faith alone and not by the works of mankind.
• Immersion baptism required as a sign of commitment by those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior.
• Traditional family and conservative values.
• Separation of church and state.

I'm curious to see how this service is as I have never been to a Good Friday service at a church that didn't have Catholic ceremony. The LDS Church of my childhood doesn't celebrate Good Friday, and I've only really been to Catholic Good Friday services. I'm going into this fairly blind as I have no idea what the service will be like.

I will keep you updated as to what happens. Until next time, peace be with you.

Vlog of the experience so far

I have included a video to supplement the blog so far. I talk about some things that I didn't mention in my previous blogs and show you some goodies you didn't get to see in the blog.

Let me know how you are enjoying everything.

Enjoy!