The Church, Part 2

The Mystery Church

The next weekend, we were planning to visit a small church plant in Southeast DC that Harvey had read about online. According to its Web site, its services were Saturdays at 5. We drove to the address we had, but we didn’t see anything that looked like a church or even a place a church was meeting--no signs or banners or anything. As we sat in the car, Harvey checked the Internet on his phone, and he saw another address for the church, but it wasn’t in Southeast DC. He made a couple phone calls but couldn’t get anyone. By then it was 5, and the service had already begun. So we gave up and started looking for a place to eat.

Harvey spoke to the pastor of that church the following week, and he told Harvey they were currently meeting at another location--a building in Capitol Hill. That Saturday, we drove to the address he gave us to attend the service. It was in an old church building, but the doors were closed and it looked like no one was there. Harvey parked the car and got out and tried the door. It was locked. He said there was a sign on the door that said they met Sunday mornings. I guess that was a minor detail that he and the pastor failed to discuss when they spoke. Something about the sign didn’t seem right to Harvey, like maybe it wasn’t actually for the church we were seeking. All we knew was we had missed this church once again, and once again, it was dinner time, so we drove off to a nearby restaurant for pizza (which was great, by the way).

The Neighborhood Church

The following Sunday morning we got ready to try for a third time to go to the mystery church. But Harvey was uncertain, and we got out the door a little later than we’d planned, so we went to an established Baptist church around the corner from our house, one we had also talked about visiting. It’s within walking distance, but it was cold, and it would have been a little too much work to walk with all the kids. 

We entered by the child care area, but the greeter wasn’t sure whether they would have child care that morning, so we headed to the sanctuary. The greeter there said they should have a place to leave Judah, and the older kids would go into the service with us until the time for children’s church. (We found out later that children’s church wasn’t happening that day; they don’t have it every Sunday.)  She led me back to the nursery, and I dropped Judah off. The people were friendly and welcoming overall, though there was no system for child care: nowhere to sign in and no form of security.

The service was a traditional Baptist service with a bit of a different cultural spin for us. There was a choir of about 15 in robes, and the pastors and ministers also sat on the stage and wore robes. There was a lot of sitting and standing, a mix of songs and scripture readings, announcements, and prayers. One thing at this church that reminded us of churches in Mozambique was that they had all visitors stand and introduce themselves. It’s funny how we usually go out of our way in the modern church to allow people to blend in, never single anyone out. This was just the opposite. I don’t mind it--I know it is their way to honor guests. And after the introductions, the choir sang their own original welcome song, complete with the church name--that was a first for me! Later on was the message, which was on one of Jesus' healings. After the service, there was a Sunday School open house. We needed to get the kids home for lunch and nap time, but we had a chance to chat with a few members and two of the ministers before we left.

We visited this church one other time, and it is one we considered joining. It is the most practical choice for us, being two minutes away from our house. It’s a church that is trying to transition to better reach out to and meet the needs of the neighborhood. From the bulletin, we could see there were several community ministries they’re involved in, including tutoring at the local elementary school, which was a ministry we had at Calvary in Tulsa. However, during our two visits there, although the preaching was Biblical, it wasn’t expositional; it didn’t seem to dig deep into the scripture. This potential lack in the preaching wasn’t necessarily reason enough for us to eliminate the church as a possibility, but it became pronounced to us when we visited the next stop on our church tour, the church that looks like it will be our destination.

(Part 3 to come.)