Church Hopping #4: World Overcomers Christian Church

This post is a little different because it does not represent a first impression of a church I visited, but that's OK. In the summer of 2008, one of my housemates worked at World Overcomers Christian Church, and I attended a few of their worship services, including one at which he was baptized. That housemate is now a housemate again (just around the corner!) and still attends WOCC. We had our house retreat this past weekend, and we went to WOCC's Saturday evening service last night, so I re-experienced World Overcomers for the first time in a few years.

If I could use one word (or phrase?) to describe WOCC's worship, it would be "high-energy." I remember the second time I went there back in undergrad, a very kind woman welcomed me and said with sweet caution, "Now just so you know, the music here is pretty loud!"

I need to back up. WOCC is a predominantly African-American, contemporary evangelical church that might qualify as a megachurch, though I'm not sure of the membership. I had my own (amusing) thoughts about why that woman felt the need to warn me about the volume, and race was definitely a component. WOCC is not an exclusively black church, and I have always found the people there more than hospitable, but its atmosphere does seem to cater to the younger black population.

Back to the high energy. The service started with several back-to-back praise songs led by a sizeable group of vocalists (including my housemate) and a stacked band that was rocking out. I didn't know any of the songs they sang, which was a little distressing in that I once was up on contemporary gospel music...but that's OK. Every song had the theme of (and often the exact words) "God is mighty." Having spent the past few weeks talking to my biblical lit class about how the Bible holds God's majesty and God's intimacy in tension, I naturally got to thinking about why certain songwriters or worship leaders or whomever might choose to emphasize God's might (as, say, the Genesis 1 creation account does, whereas the Genesis 2 creation story describes a much closer, more anthropomorphic God). Just a runaway train of thought.

Pastor Nate, whom I remember as having been my housemate's supervisor the summer he worked there, offered a greeting and announcements after the worship set, then the musicians came back on to lead another song before giving the stage to Pastor Andy, the tall, charismatic senior pastor of WOCC. As part of their current "Ready Set Grow" series, Pastor Andy preached from Romans 15 and Philippians 1, encouraging the congregation not to be self-satisfied in any blessing or strength they may experience but to use those gifts for others. "We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, 'The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me'" (Rom. 15:1-3). My housemate had mentioned that a major emphasis at WOCC lately has been encouraging people to mature in faith, as increasingly its membership includes many new believers, and this message seemed to fit that agenda.

If you want to get pumped up for Jesus and feel effusively welcome in a space that does not look like a church, go check out World Overcomers.

I'm headed back to Durham Resurrection Community tonight (we're meeting in a house again), but I figure by the third visit it's no longer "church hopping." :)

Church Hopping #3: And Now for Something Completely Different, Part 1: Buddhist Meditation

OK, so this blog isn't about a church visit at all. Inspired by Abdullah Antepli's part in our Goodson Chapel service last Thursday and by watching the video of a recent interfaith panel on 9-11 at Duke Divinity, I decided that my exploration of various worship settings needed to expand beyond Christianity. So I looked up the website of the Buddhist Community at Duke and decided to attend one of their weekly meetings, which includes meditation and a talk from a Dharma teacher. I've decided to keep this and any other non-Christian explorations in my "Church Hopping" series, but with the dubious subtitle "And Now for Something Completely Different." Hope that's OK.

Just so we're clear, I know next to nothing about Buddhism. I raised my hand as someone who had never meditated before, because although I have done short mindfulness meditations in a Christian context, I had never done it like this before.

My first-time status was obvious, but I wasn't the only one. The Buddhist group at Duke shares a meditation room on campus with the Hindus, and the floor was populated with cushions and a few chairs along the walls. We left our shoes outside. I was greeted warmly by Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, the Buddhist chaplain, who was part of the interfaith panel I mentioned, and by a statue of the Buddha (not the laughing Buddha). As we gathered, I met a graduate student in the Environmental Management program who was surprised that, as a divinity student, I had never been there before. I was reminded that although Duke Divinity is an all-Christian institution, places like Harvard and Yale are not. I chose Duke in part for the sense of community and formation that comes with sharing a common faith and call, but there are definitely educational and formational aspects I've missed out on by limiting my theological education to within Christianity (and, in very limited ways in undergrad, Judaism and Islam).

We started with a 12-minute sitting. I have back issues, so I'll admit that a fair chunk of this time was consumed by a preoccupation with an intense pain and tightness in the center of my back. I am also very easily distracted, which is why I pray most often in the car, so my mind kept wandering away from my breath (we were led in a form of mindfulness meditation). However, as the leader gave gentle instruction for the newcomers, he anticipated such wanderings and encouraged us to acknowledge distractions without chastising ourselves, to take note of sounds and thoughts and images without letting them take control. It reminded me of similar teachings on prayer and self-compassion I heard from the monks at Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, where I spent my spring breaks in undergrad.

The guest teacher tonight was John Orr, who teaches here at Duke and is an ordained Buddhist monk. (Side note: as he talked about his experiences in India and Thailand, I was struck by how much crossover there is in language from Buddhist and Catholic monastic systems, though I suspect the terms don't always mean the same thing; but I heard "monastery," "monk," "nun" and even "prior.") He spoke about developing and/or deepening a practice of meditation. He used language of "doing" versus "being," in that meditation is not something you can necessarily control or accomplish; it requires a degree of passivity and release. Orr spoke of his own struggles with letting go and learning a meditation practice that worked for him, of having to realize that anytime he was seeking after a specific experience or feeling in meditation, he was grasping for control. He identified this with the solar plexus chakra (one of seven) and said that the way to free oneself from that grasping was to move to the heart chakra, the place of wisdom and compassion. Since I can't help but put what I was hearing in terms of my own experience, I was reminded of what Henri Nouwen called "the inner voice of love," a deep place of self-compassion and knowledge of God's love. Only by knowing one's own belovedness can one rightly love others.

I feel like this post is fantastically choppy and ill-educated, but this is just my raw take on my first experience of Buddhist meditation. I'm hoping to learn a little more about Buddhism; years ago, I bought the installments of Oxford University Press' Very Short Introduction series on Buddhism and Hinduism when I realized that my undergraduate religion degree had introduced me almost solely to the Abrahamic faiths (though I have read the Bhagavad Gita). As minimal of an exposure as tonight was, I can say that I needed to hear a lot of what Orr had to say about love, wisdom and compassion, and I'm glad that I went.

Church Hopping #2: Duke Chapel (ish), Emmaus Way, and Durham Resurrection Community (again)

I have now gone two Sundays in a row without setting foot in an actual church building, yet between those two Sundays, I have participated in 4.5 worship services (I'll explain the fraction in a moment). Actually, make that three Sundays and 5.5 services, because New Creation UMC meets in Healthy Start Academy (I'm counting buildings that look like churches but are no longer owned by churches as non-churches).

I have decided that Sunday evening worship services are the best thing ever. I spent all summer getting up at 7:00 a.m. on Sundays, and last school year it was 6:00. Today, I woke up a little before 9:00 and spent the morning getting work done. I felt a little transgressive, so, partly due to that feeling and partly because I was curious to see what they were doing for 9-11, I turned on Duke Chapel's live video stream on their website.

That's where I got the half a worship service in my total. Now, I'm sure I could devote an entire blog post to whether online worship is possible, and anyone who knows me at all could probably guess what my answer would be, but I'm going to save that, because one of my classes is actually going to spend some time looking at religion and technology this semester, so I'll have something more intelligent to say in a few months. Even if you think you can worship online, I definitely wasn't engaged enough for it to count. If you want to give it a shot, the video of today's service can be found here.

However, it was moving to see and hear what they had going on this morning. Mad props to worship director Meghan Feldmeyer, who is the woman and now owes me hangout time since 9-11 has passed. :) They incorporated a memorial act into the service where people brought white roses to lay before the altar as the choir sang "Lacrymosa" from Mozart's Requiem (which they performed entire this afternoon). The opening hymn, "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," an adaptation of Psalm 23 that I thought was fitting. The choir, as usual, was glorious, and one anthem choice in particular was striking: the Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which includes these words penned by Wilfred Owen:

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

They also used a litany for September 11 that incorporated lines from "O God Our Help in Ages Past." And also as usual, Dean Sam Wells' sermon was wonderful. He focused on the idea of Ground Zero and the images of ashes, recalling not only the dust that choked the air of Manhattan on 9-11 but also the dust from which we are made and to which we will return. Just go check out the sermon, I could listen to that man talk all day.

I did actually go to and participate in two other worship services today. The first was at Emmaus Way, which describes itself as an "emergent activist" church. Having spent a lot of time this summer getting to know and love the way Lockerbie Central UMC in Indy does church, this sounded really appealing. Plus, I've known the pastor there for a while, as one of his kids participated in the youth group I used to lead.

Emmaus Way meets at The Reality Center, another one of those former church buildings that now houses what I will happily call an incredible ministry even though it's not, strictly speaking, a church. I knew I would love this church from the moment I walked in. They meet in what used to be the sanctuary and is now more of a gym, but they set it up in a round. In the center were the musicians and a chair for the pastor, which conveniently swiveled. Flanking all sides were rows of chairs and a few couches. Art was set up all around the room, candles on end tables and in window sills, a gorgeous painting by Carole Baker representing the liturgical calendar gracing one corner. A low table holding communion elements was at one end of the oval made by the seats. The space was inviting and comfortable, with an air of anticipation.

If I had had any doubts from my first visual impression, a glance at the bulletin drove those away. The first song they did was by the Indigo Girls ("Hammer and a Nail"). The Emmaus Way website states that they are committed to supporting local, professional musicians, and they even have an Arts Pastor. The music was folksy but fresh, and the songs seemed to be from random sources, including one traditional hymn, two songs by the basics and one by Over the Rhine, but each song had a specific liturgical function, including a song of confession and a song of absolution.

The sermon was really more of a conversation, which reminded me of the Lyceum series Lockerbie Central did this summer (and apparently is a characteristic of much emergent worship out there). Emmaus Way is doing a series on Ordinary Time, and today the subject was vocation. The pastor, Tim Conder, offered some reflection and then opened the floor to let people share how they see their vocation tying into what they do for a living. He then went into an exploration of the book of Jonah as it relates to vocation, which I really enjoyed because for some reason Jonah has been coming up a lot lately in my readings for different things. Jonah's problem, Tim said, was not that he was afraid; it was that he knew that if he went to Ninevah and delivered God's message, God would show forgiveness to his enemies—and Jonah didn't want that.

I loved Emmaus Way's blend of ancient church tradition (which today included a reading from the Book of Common Prayer, a rite for the dead as a nod to 9-11) and contemporary/"secular" elements. Having spent the summer around people talking a lot about the emergent church movement and figuring out how to participate in it in context, here I was seeing it actually happening. I will definitely be back.

I left straight from Emmaus Way to go worship with Durham Resurrection Community for a second time. I had already met with two of their musicians earlier in the day because, being me, it took less than a week for me to get on the worship team. Last week, we met at a rock quarry; this week, we met in a member's home. We gathered in the living room, read Scripture, shared joys and concerns, broke bread and sang praises. I even played the cajon on one song. I've enjoyed the laid back, familial feel of that group, and it's nice that it is an odd conglomeration of friends of mine and people I don't know (or am now getting to know).

I'm really enjoying this church hopping thing. I want to maintain some sort of stability as I visit around (hence getting plugged in with Resurrection already and hopefully going back to Emmaus Way as much as I can), but visiting around is already proving pretty educational and I've only been at it for two weeks. I've already had a Quaker I know invite me to a Friends meeting, and another friend of mine attends an African American Catholic parish I'd love to visit.

But I'm also hoping to expand beyond the walls of Christianity. Especially after last week's service in Goodson Chapel that included reflections from Imam Abdullah Antepli, and after watching the video of an interfaith panel held this past week at Duke Divinity, I'm planning to check out Friday Jummah prayers with Muslim Life at Duke and weeknight meditation and discussion with the campus Buddhist group. I've also been meaning to actually attend a service at Judea Reform, the Jewish Reform congregation in Durham (where I've sung in a concert before and whose sanctuary I adore). Worship adventure is out there!

Church Hopping #1: The Gathering Church and Durham Resurrection Community

This past summer, my friend and classmate Tom Lewis went on a whirlwind tour of the U.S., visiting churches along the way to experience their worship services and learn about how they are connecting with the local community. He documented the entire experience (exhaustively) at 8000milestoordination.blogspot.com. Tom came back enthusiastic about encouraging other seminarians to do the same—as he said, besides what he learned about church, he learned even more about himself that he thinks will be vital to his self-awareness in his future ministry.

I have decided to do something similar my last year of seminary. I am generally opposed to church-hopping, but this is my last chance to experience first-hand how a variety of churches worship and engage the community. Plus, as I looked toward hopefully doing more with worship design and faith community development, I want to know what others are doing. Ministry is all about stealing (er, borrowing) good ideas for the sake of the kingdom.

I started yesterday. I went to church twice and did not set foot in a church building. In the morning, I went to the Gathering Church, where one of my classmates is an associate pastor. They meet at Creekside Elementary School, which leaves much to be desired in terms of acoustics, but they managed well. I had heard a lot about the Gathering Church (and actually helped with music there one Sunday a few years ago on a fluke) and had been intending to visit for a while. They have a great community of musicians within the church and put out a Christmas album last year; they are also working on a hymns record now.

The music did not disappoint. I knew I'd like it from the moment I walked in: the band, which consisted of 3 guitars, bass and drums, including one female guitarist/vocalist, was warming up as people found their seats. The congregational songs included two hymns, two more contemporary selections, and a song by Thad Cockrell, an artist who came out of that church (and whose music I love). The service opened with a Psalm reading and closed with a rousing rendition of the Doxology. The music was punctuated by prayers and Scripture readings, and pastor Mark Acuff offered a sermon on Mark 7:31-37. I liked it.

My second church visit of the day was in an even less traditional setting: outside. Then again, this could be considered more traditional, depending on how far back you go...anyway, a few of my friends are part of a new church called Durham Resurrection Community. It's a Nazarene congregation, and the pastor is a 2011 Duke Divinity graduate and friend. Yesterday, they went to the Eno River State Park for swimming in the rock quarry (a favorite, if somewhat dangerous, destination of Duke students and Durhamites alike) followed by a picnic and outdoor worship, complete with a water cooler standing in as a communion table. It was a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed seeing the people I knew and meeting those I didn't. It's a small community, and they've been meeting in various places since they began worshipping together. Next week, we're meeting at a member's home. I've already been recruited to help with music. It's a laid-back but intentional community, and I liked it too.

What I think I'm going to do is to continue going to Durham Resurrection Community in the evenings while I church-hop in the mornings. I realize (and Tom warned me) that hitting lots of different churches might make me feel without a center, so having a consistent community might help me with that. Who knows, maybe one of the churches I visit will turn out to be a good place for me to make my church home for the duration of my time in Durham; but until I get a better idea of what I'm doing, I'm going to try to give myself a little grounding.