Sunday at Canyon Road Assembly of God

First of all, sorry for the inactivity on this page. I got busy and distracted by a few things in life. I'm not back in full force with 2 blog entries in 2 days.

Last Sunday, I went to Canyon Road Assembly of God Church. A little background information is in order for the Assemblies of God:

• The Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal church in the world with over 66 million members.
• They are Evangelical.
• They believe in the Trinity, that Christ is the second person in the Trinity who died for the sins of mankind.
• Believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
• They believe the Bible is the Word of God and the final authority.
• Believe in salvation by grace through faith alone.
• Believe in baptism in the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, etc.
• Practice baptism by full immersion, separate from salvation which, which prepares the person for service as a Christian.
• Practice communion, which is symbolic of sharing in the atonement of Jesus.

So how was Canyon Road?

Atmosphere:

Canyon road on 12th street in Ogden and is literally down the road from the mouth of a canyon in the mountains. The building is pretty unremarkable from the outside, and other than church signs and a pretty little rock display, you might think it was a strip mall for dentists' offices and insurance companies.

I didn't get any pictures of the chapel inside. It wasn't too different from chapels at other Evangelical churches: stage up front with a live band playing, colored lights shining onto an abstract modern backdrop, a cross in the center of the wall behind the stage, padded chairs lined up in rows, nothing too different. The only thing that made the inside setting different than Alpine Church, the Genesis Project, Crossroads, etc, was that this one had multiple flags draped along the walls of various countries.

Overall, the same sort of atmosphere I've come to expect from Evangelical churches. Not much variation or innovation with most of these churches. What's interesting is around here so many people tell me that they just discovered Alpine, or the Genesis Project, or some other church and tell me that it's not like any other church they've seen and that I need to check it out. But it seems that this type of church setting is more the rule than the exception with Evangelical churches. They all have a coffee bar, they all have a live band that plays contemporary Christian music, they all use multimedia, they all have special seminars and classes, etc.

I think the main reason people around here feel these churches are unique and not like anything else is because most of the people going to these churches come from LDS backgrounds and this style of worship is vastly different from that. But it is far from unique.

The People:

The people were pretty nice to us. We were greeted and escorted to the chapel by a lovely lady dressed very well in a summer outfit. She introduced us to the pastor who asked us a couple questions and welcomed us to the church.

There were people of all sorts of walks of life dressed in everything from suits and ties to track suits. There was a lady in front of me who had a fan made out of blue feathers. I wanted to steal it out of her hands and run I loved it so much. But of course I wouldn't.

Overall, the people were nice. Not much else to note on them.

The Service:

The service was what I've come to expect from an Evangelical church, they began with a song, opening prayer, announcements, a few more songs, then a sermon and altar call.

The announcements were interesting. They talked about a youth event that had some PowerPoint slides to go with it. Then they talked about how they had members going to Mexico for a mission that sounded like it would also include a revival at the end. The pastor said he was flying out later that day to join them.

Afterward, they talked about a fundraiser they had. There was a couple of Latino guys who got up and spoke about the fundraiser. One spoke about it in Spanish, the other translated. There was a Spanish video that wasn't translated at all advertising the event. It turns out it's a fundraiser to help orphans in Latin countries. At least that's what I gathered from the presentation.

The church is also focused heavily on missionary work. They seem to have a lot of active missionary programs and brought up how important it was to go out and save people. I noticed most of their missions were to Latin America.

The service was nothing I haven't seen before at other similar churches. I feel like with many of these Evangelical denominations I rehash the same things.

The Message:

The message was on prayer and was pretty similar in many ways to the sermon given at Crossroads Christian Fellowship a few weeks back. As such, I'm not going to really rehash a lot of the same points as you can read about them there.

What I will say is that the tone of the sermon was different. While at Crossroads, it was given in a loving gentle sort of manner, as though the pastor were talking to his friends or family in his sweet Irish accent, here it was very much done in a preaching style and delivered as a well mapped out sermon.

Some differing points he made:

• Prayer is like steroids. It boosts up your spirit and your life
• Prayer feels good and is supernatural. This is an interesting point. Prayer doesn't feel good because it's supernatural. We actually feel good due to it stimulating parts of your brain that other activities such as mediation will do. It will create a sense of connection, euphoria, and relax you. All of this is quite natural and well studied.
• Complaining is bad. Prayer is the answer to making you stop complaining.
• If you don't invest your time in church or God, then how can you expect to feel connected? If you're feeling disconnected from either, it's not on them, it's on you.

Again, pretty similar sermon to the previous one.

Overall Experience:

I feel jaded saying this service was just business as usual. But it really felt that way. I don't see a lot of variety in these churches and would like to. I understand this is what most Evangelical Christians want in a service, but it just leaves me wondering each time, is this all? In a lot of other spiritual communities, there is a lot of symbolism, a lot of ritual, special holidays that call to mind differing parts of the tradition. You fast some days, you don't others. Here, it all just seems to be the same thing in and out every week with no real variety. When does it go deeper than sing these songs and listen to this man tell you what to believe?

Additional Notes:

Expect another blog tomorrow about Faith Baptist Church. I went to this church for my friend Austin. This was his childhood church, and though we had already been to a Fundamentalist Baptist church, I felt it was important for him to experience this.

Stay tuned for that because it was quite interesting, to say the least.

Until next time, peace be with you!

A Sunday of Gospel music and kind people

This past Sunday, I went to Embry Chapel here in Ogden, part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), a historically black church.

A little background on the AME. Like virtually all historically black churches, it was founded because of the uncomfortable subject of race. The white Methodists of the time were discriminatory against black people within the Church, segregating congregations, limiting the involvement of black members of the clergy, either by separating black members in a different part of the church building, or forcing them into separate congregations completely.

Several black clergymen founded the AME as a place where black Methodists could worship without discrimination and fully participate in the life of the Church.

The doctrine of the AME is Methodist. Methodists come out of further reformation of the Angilcans, started by John Wesley, bringing Christianity to more of a practical everyday experience, with more focus on preaching and being workable for the poor and everyday person.

The AME is a Protestant church and has some of the core beliefs:

• Belief in the Trinity, one God in three persons.
• Belief Jesus is the Messiah and second person of the Trinity, fully God and fully man.
• Mankind is inclined by Original Sin to a sinful nature.
• Jesus died for the sins of mankind to deliver them back to the Father.
• Mankind is forgiven by God's grace through faith alone, not by works.
• The Bible contains all that is necessary for the salvation of mankind and is the final authority on matters of faith and practice.
• Two sacraments are practiced: Baptism, which may be administered by pouring or immersion, and administered to both adults and children. Baptism is seen as an outward sign of an inward grace and regenerates the spirit. The other sacrament is Communion, in which Jesus's body and blood is present spiritually through faith.
• Ministers may marry.
• Both men and women may serve in the ministry.
• No bar based on race to membership or ministry.
• Focus on the poor and community well being.
• Traditional views on human sexuality, including discouragement of homosexuality.
• Episcopal structure of the Church (ruled by bishops).

So, what was the experience like?

Atmosphere:

The building itself is really simple. A very small, red bricked building in a less than desirable area of Ogden just up from the dog food factory. There are no frills to the exterior of the building. Just a simple sign and a cross.

The interior was a simple chapel with a pulpit in the center of it. Behind it were some music stands for the choir, to the left of them was an area for the band. Directly in front of the pulpit was the communion table and small baptismal font. On the wall behind the sanctuary was a cross with studded with light bulbs illuminating it for the whole congregation.

Overall, elegant, but simple decor inside gave this place a very homey feeling that I very much enjoyed.

The People:

I have to say, these, so far were the friendliest people I've encountered. We walked in and were instantly treated like family. People came over and introduced themselves to us, some hugged us, all said nice words. Every person in the congregation met and talked to us at some point. One man was nice enough to tell us that there were doughnuts in the other room and to help ourselves to them and some water before the service. Another woman talked to me about her work at the university I used to attend. Apparently she works with the Diversity Center there. It was nice to hear.

The congregation isn't diverse at all. In fact, my friend and I were the only people in the whole congregation who weren't black. But that didn't seem to matter to them at all. We were completely welcomed there.

While getting the doughnut and water from the other room, I noticed the church had several of their outreach programs up on the board. The programs included tutoring for K - 12 students, a food pantry, and HIV awareness and prevention courses.

Overall, nicest group of people I've ever met. I'd go back just to get to know more of them better.

The Service:

The service was much like I expected it to be. It began with a Gospel rendition of Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow, then a responsive call to worship. Afterward, they sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and a lady gave a very heartfelt prayer.

Afterward, there was another Gospel hymn sung, while the whole chapel clapped together to keep rhythm. Afterward there was a scripture reading about Joseph discovering Mary was with child and choosing to put her away in private rather than publicly disgrace her.

They then recited in unison the two great commandments given by Jesus: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. This was followed by a Gospel rendition of the Gloria Patri, a short Catholic hymn praising the Trinity: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." This was followed by yet another Gospel song.

Afterward, there were a number of announcements, mostly doing with church activities and the activities of several other churches that members were invited to. They seem to have a strong interfaith focus, which I find nice. We were also asked to stand and introduce ourselves as guests. They found out we were former students of Weber State, and that we both had degrees in language. We were asked to speak a bit for them in our foreign tongues. They welcomed us as a group and made us feel awkward, just like a real family gathering.

They then had an altar call. Unlike other churches with an altar call, every single person in the congregation was asked to come up and kneel around the altar, which we did. That felt kind of awkward for me, but it was over quickly. Then they took up a collection while the choir sang another song.

After this, the pastor gave a sermon, more on that below. The congregation then recited the Apostles' Creed, and ended with a prayer.

Overall, the music was very upbeat and inspiring, and the structure was pretty seamless. It was quite a lovely service.

The Message:

The sermon was kind of all over the place. Part of it was similar to the Southern Baptist sermon I heard, in that the pastor said, "If you're wrong about Jesus, it doesn't matter what you're right about."

He then asked the famous question, "What would Jesus do?" followed by talking about how Jesus is a great portrait of God because God himself is love as we read in scripture.

He then stated we need to withhold nothing from God, and that we serve two masters, or think we can handle things on our own, we're wrong. We need Jesus.

Then he said that Jesus promised the Kingdom of Heaven, but just as surely as those promises are true, so are his promises of that place called Hell. He reiterated that we have free will, but God knew what we would choose before we were born.

This has always struck me as a disturbing paradox about God. God, knowing that much of his creation will end up in the Hell he has created as a never ending punishment for them, still creates them and allows this, even though he supposedly is love itself. The idea of eternal damnation is one of my biggest problems with Christianity. The concept of Hell is outrageous and contradictory to a being that is supposedly all loving. I understand they teach that God is all just, but there is nothing just about eternal damnation for finite crimes. There is nothing I can think of that a human being could do that would warrant punishment that never ends.

The sermon was unstructured, and all over the place, but I noticed that didn't matter. With churches like this one, it doesn't matter what you say, it matters how you say it. The pastor delivered the sermon in the iconic style of black preachers, dragging out words, shouting with conviction, sing-talking at points. The congregation played their parts well. The people would shout, "Amen!" or "Alright! Alright!" at most anything. One woman kept saying, "Say it," when the pastor would pause, then shout out "Amen!" when he would make his point. Many seemed distracted with children or some other task as they shouted. It was like it was what was expected for the atmosphere, so they did it because they were supposed to. A very interesting phenomenon to say the least.

Overall Experience:

The church was both an interesting cultural experience and a fun time. The people were absolutely lovely and I would love to talk to a number of them outside of church to know them better. I would definitely go back and spend another Sunday at Embry Chapel.

Until next time, peace be with you.