Chris Metcalf

10.19.03

Project 7 – Intercultural Communication

 

Jill Schwartz and I decided to go to Christ Temple Church in Ft. Wayne. We set off on our journey at approximately 8:45, and arrived at our destination sometime around 9:20. My initial reaction of the church was that it was not what I was expecting. I don’t really know why I had this expectation, but I was expecting to be going to a large church, with maybe 500 people or so. The building, however, looked a bit undersized to fit 500.

Since it was only 9:20, and Sunday School was not scheduled to start until 9:45, we decided to drive around a little bit and look for a McDonalds or something of that nature. At first I told her to turn the wrong way, so we turned around. Much to our dissappointment, there was not a McDonalds anywhere to be found. (At least not on the street we were on). However, we did see a gas station, and that was good enough for us. Jill got cappuccino and I picked up a bottle of orange juice. We then decided it would be wise to pay for these items before we left the convenience store. This is where the fun comes in… Traditionally there is not a big wall of glass (bulletproof, I assume) between the customer and the cashier, but in this case, there was. We were in a pretty “rough neighborhood”, so I suppose it’s understandable. So we each paid through a tray on the counter and our money was slid through the glass wall into the waiting hands of the cashier. I then asked Jill if they had a lot of gas stations that have big glass walls like that where she’s from, and she said that they didn’t.

So by this time it was about 9:35 or so, and we decided to go back to the church. We were both pretty nervous about walking in, and did not really know what to expect. We decided to make a big entrance and walk up the main steps, although walking up the side steps would’ve been a time-saving venture. When we walked in, there was an older lady who was sitting on a bench that welcomed us. She nicely informed us that we should probably move from the place where we were standing, because there was going to be a small prayer meeting there. So we went over by her for a while. I honestly don’t remember what we talked about with her; I think it was some pretty basic general stuff. Nothing really of importance. Then we saw that the prayer circle was forming. It seemed to be a thing that the leaders of the church were doing, but then they invited us to join them. The first thought that went through my mind was to kindly reject the offer, but before I could say anything, Jill said “sure”. I then remembered that we were supposed to “make the most of our experience”, and I was glad that she said sure and that I did not get to speak up first.

Before the prayer circle, an older man put oil on Jill and my foreheads. Neither of us was positive what this was for, or if we should wipe it off after the prayer was over. I did not do anything with mine, just let it soak into my head, I guess.

In the prayer circle we all joined hands and the guy beside me said a prayer. The most notable thing here was that while he was praying, I think that pretty much every other person in the circle was saying something along the lines of “Yes, Jesus” or “Praise God”. This seemed to fuel him in his prayer, as his voice got stronger and seemed more powerful. The best word that I can use to describe this praying experience is “Alive.” It was so alive, and really felt like the Spirit of God was there. I’m very glad that we got to experience this.

After the prayer, a man who seemed to be kind of the leader of the congregation talked to us. He asked us where we are from and other general things like that. He asked us how we’d heard of Christ Temple Church and we said that one of our professors had visited once, and we heard about it through him. (Even though I think you might have gotten the information about it from the internet) I tried to avoid saying that we were there as a homework assignment, and I’m not sure if this was the same thought process that Jill had or not, but neither of us did ever mention that fact to anyone.

 

(INTERMISSION: I took a break from writing, and am now finishing this report on Monday night)

 

After the pre-Sunday school prayer, it only seemed natural that Sunday school would soon be starting. However, before the actual Sunday school started, there were a few acapella songs sung, some prayer requests were taken, and a prayer was said. This lasted about 15 minutes. During this time we were given a visitor’s pack, and each asked to fill out a card with our names and addresses. The visitor’s pack included some information on the church and its practices, and a few pieces of candy.

During the time of praying, when Jill and I were trying to be serious and pray, a young girl in the row in front of us started to laugh at us. Jill and I were talking about this on the drive home, and neither of us knows what she was laughing out. It made me feel very uncomfortable that she was laughing at us though. She was later kicked out of the service by her mother.

After that, it was time to start Sunday school. The man who talked to us earlier came back to us and sort of gave us a little direction on what was happening and where we should go. He told us that there were several classes to choose from, and pointed us in the direction of the one that he thought we would most enjoy. Conveintly, the class was being held in the sanctuary, just a few rows up from the pew we were in, so we didn’t have far to move. At first we sat behind a lady, whose name we later found out was Sister Shauna (I think. If it wasn’t Shauna, it was something close to that). She saw us behind her and invited us to sit with her. She turned out to be somewhat of our guide throughout the Sunday school class.

The sanctuary wasn’t too awfully big, but there were four different classes going at once in the same room. If you listened for it, you could hear what was being said in the other classes, but it was not so loud that it was distracting. I had no trouble paying attention in the class that Jill and I were in.

I’m not sure what the topic of the class was supposed to be, but it seemed like they talked a lot about how to properly raise a child up in the ways of the Lord. Probably the thing that I remember most was Sister Shauna saying that she doesn’t understand her children when they talk Ebonics slang to her, and use words such as “Fo Sheazy”. She said that she was raised up taught to speak proper English, and she thought that her children should do the same. Then there was a discussion about how kids use that slang when they’re with their friends, but they cut it off when they go into a classroom or into a job interview. I found this to be a very interesting discussion.

Then seemingly without any warning or announcement, the lady in front of us (who was one of the few Caucasians in attendance; she was married to an African-American man) stood up and walked around the class to the other side of the pew we were in. Apparently it was time to take the Sunday school offering. This is something that I found to be kind of a bit different from what I am used to; Shauna made it seem as if offering was a mandatory thing. She looked at Jill and I and said “it’s time for offering”, and at this time my mind was racing with thoughts of “what do I do?” I quietly asked “do we have to give an offering?” I’m not sure if Shauna heard me or if she started speaking before I could finish asking my question, but she could tell by the look on Jill and my faces that we were not planning on giving any money for offering- so she said “what? You guys don’t have any offering?” The way that she said it is what made it seem like offering was a mandatory thing. She then gave us each a dollar out of her purse to put in the offering. I thought this was a very nice and friendly gesture.

Sunday school ended at about 11:05, and the main service was not scheduled to start until 11:30, so we had 25 minutes to fill. I decided that this would be a good time to make a bathroom break, so I asked Jill if she had to go too (because I did not want to leave her alone), and we went. We asked the man who was sitting in front of us where the bathrooms were, and he said that there is a small on right outside of the sanctuary, and that there was a male and female restroom in the basement. We opted to use the male and female bathrooms. The plan was for Jill to use the women’s restroom and for me to make a quick stop into the men’s lavatory.

We found our way to the basement, but to our disappointment, it was not apparent as to where the bathrooms were. However, one thing that was apparent when we were downstairs was that this is where the youth were. There were probably about 5 or 6 teenagers; mostly girls, but one guy. They were really nice to us and directed us to the proper bathrooms, based on our gender.

The bathrooms themselves were nothing to write home about, so I won’t.

I was hoping to time it just right so that Jill and I would walk out of the bathrooms at the same time, (to minimize our time apart) but that didn’t happen. When I got out, she was talking to the teenagers that we had seen before going into the bathrooms. They were asking her what her name is and other such questions. When I came out, one of the girls asked us “so do you guys go out?” meaning in a boyfriend and girlfriend sense. The answer was no, and I think that the girl who asked felt a little bit embarrassed. Jill and I then went back upstairs.

When we arrived back in the sanctuary, we picked our seats for the main service. We decided to sit towards the front, and in the middle section of pews. While we were waiting for the service to begin, we were greeted by a few people who passed by our pew. One of the people who came up to us was the pastor of the church. He welcomed us and made a joke. It was something about being comfortable, and he jokingly invited us to join him up on the pulpit.

The service started soon after, and worship was first. Jill and I were both curious to find out what kind of music they had for their worship. I didn’t imagine them singing songs like “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” or “In the Secret (I Want to Know You)”. I was thinking that songs like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” would possibly appear somewhere in the service. They had a drum set, keyboard, saxophone, and either a piano or an organ. There were no guitars, as usually used in most worship services that I attend.

The songs were mostly all new to me, but they were pretty catchy. If I didn’t know the words, I would just clap along with the beat. The worship was very free, there were people doing all kinds of different things. Some people were sitting, some people were standing, some people were dancing, and some people were crying. Jill and I opted to sit and clap.

Our friend Sister Shauna (from Sunday school) sat in front of us with two young children that I assume were hers. The one girl, who was probably about five years old turned around and looked at Jill and I a lot. During one of the songs, she tuned around and handed me a hymnal. I think that she was trying to help me, but honestly, it made me feel kind of insulted. I did not know what song was being sung, so I couldn’t look it up in the hymnal or anything, so I just put in on the pew.

The worship started off kind of slow, but as it went on, it got more alive. More people started dancing and jumping up and down. There was a man who was running around the church dancing. (The man sitting behind us later explained that the guy who was running around dancing had a brain tumor, but had recently learned that it had gone away, so he had reason to celebrate)

Another man who was in the choir (on stage, behind the pulpit) really got into the worship as well, and he seemed to be fighting off demons or something, because he was punching violently into the air. At times he was also jumping up and down.

During worship, Sister Shauna was very animated. Early on, she was pretty calm, just swaying back and forth and raising her hands. Then later she was screaming and crying for a while. Then she started jumping up and down much like the man who was in the choir, and more screaming followed. Although this was not really funny in any way, it was hard not to laugh. I have a tendency to laugh at all the wrong times, so I was trying desperately to hold in any laughter. The last thing I wanted was for someone in the church to come up to me and ask me to leave. That would’ve been very humiliating. My strategy for not laughing was to look down at the floor and count. This kept my mind off of her, and helped me calm down.

There was also a baptism during the worship time. This took place behind the pulpit near the back wall. A man of about 25 years was being baptized. This seemed pretty much like every baptism I have ever seen, nothing too different. After the man came back out of the water, there was much cheering from the crowd.

The way that they worshipped was like nothing that I had ever experienced first-hand before. I’ve heard stories of things like this happening, but never have seen it in person. I think this was also the first time for Jill to see something like this. The African American people are very passionate about their worship and about their faith.

Several times the pastor tried to gain control of the service and settle everyone down from their worship, so that the service could move on. He kept saying that “if we had time, we’d worship longer”, and people in crowd were yelling comments like “all we have is time, pastor” and “well then let’s make time”.

Eventually the worship settled down and it was time for another offering. They did this different from any other offering that I’d seen before as well. Each person who had an offering to give (Sister Shauna gave us each another dollar) and we went up to the front of the church, in order of our row, and dropped our money into the collection basket.

This was pretty much the end of all notable things of the service.

On the way back home Jill and I had a nice talk about all the things that had happened and our thoughts on everything. One of the more notable things that I said was that although we had just left, it seemed like it had been a long time since our visit. I really didn’t know how to explain that in words at the time, and now as I’m trying to write it down on paper, it is even harder to express. It seemed like we were in another world when we were at the church. Everything was very different from what we are both used to.

 

 

Final thoughts:

 

·        It is notable to mention that there were no church bulletins with announcements and such (at least not that we saw), and there were also no printed words for any of the songs that were sung. They did have hymnals, but did not say “this is on page XXX of your hymnal”. I think it was just assumed that everyone knew the words to the songs.

 

·        I thought that the people of Christ Temple Church were extremely nice and helpful to both Jill and I. There was certainly no shortage of people who came up to us and introduced themselves. I don’t know that at my home church I would be as friendly to visitors as they were to us. I told this to Jill on the car ride home, and she agreed.

 

 

·        This was an excellent “bonding experience” for Jill and I, because we totally had to rely 100% on each other the whole time. There’s no way that I could have done this assignment by myself, and she said that the same was true with her. It’s really not that comfortable of an experience being in the minority, especially when we didn’t know what was going to happen next. Thanks to Jill for being my partner on this assignment – I think she deserves some sort of extra credit or something fancy like that. J