The intern at our church invited the youth group to go and experience another ELCA Lutheran Church in Chicago. Reid and I were the only "youth members" that showed up on Sunday morning to venture into the city to worship. The church we went to was Bethel Lutheran Church, a predominatly african american church in a very crime ridden neighborhood on Chicago's west side. The actual corner that the church is located on is a known drug exchange location. The church has an agreement with the community's drug dealers and so from 7 am to 3 pm on Sunday there is no dealing that takes place on that corner. The intern explained that the church service willl look a little different then we are used to. Although church is scheduled to start at 10:45 am, the service actually doesn't start until everyone gets there. Now in normal Lutheran tradition if church lasts more then an hour the congregation members get restless, at Bethel church ends when it ends. At the paticuar service that we attend we were there for three hours, and it could have gone on longer, but the pastor decided it was time to end the service so they did.
One of the reasons that the service is lengthy has to do with the "sharing of the peace". Now I can only speak from personal preference, but I have always felt that the "sharing of the peace" part of the service is something that people participate in, but don't neccessary enjoy, maybe it's just me. We shake each others' hands and smile, but I personally do not venture out of the church pew (consider it my comfort zone). At Bethel "sharing of the peace" can take an hour, maybe even longer. Everyone hugs everyone, literally everyone. So I tried to stay in my comfort zone at this service, but I quickly realized that I needed to conform. I left my pew and was warmly greeted with hugs and congrats on my pregnancy. These vibrantly dressed black women hugged me like we were long lost family, I was engulfed by them and it was beautiful. They didn't know me and would probably never see me again, but they genuienly cared and it was so refreshing.
Now even though the service was three hours there was no sermon. That morning when everyone showed up they decided to do a baptism and a rite of passage presentation so there was not time to have a sermon. The rite of passage presentation was very interesting. They showed a slide show of who I assumed to be congregation members, mostly women, and the a lady spoke about how proud she was of their achievements. Then girls and women were called up and given a gift. The one thing these girls and women had in common is that they had recently graduted from something (everything from kindergarten to college and even a bible study program). Now at first I thought how mundane it seemed to celebrate minor achievements like graduating from kindergarten and bible study, but then I realized that in that neighborhood every milestone deserved to be celebrated. There are many children who don't make it to kindergarten let alone graduate from high school and graduating from college is almost never heard of. In this community that is ruled by gangs and drug dealers, education in a classroom is not considered a priority.
Bethel Lutheran Church is definetly a place where spirit, grace, and joy exist. It was a beautiful experience that I will not soon forget.
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