2/1 This morning I woke up and felt fantastic about life. I love getting a good amount of sleep. Katie and I joined several other classmates and our TA’s in attending Calvary Chapel for church. Unfortunately, the Victoria line closes on Sundays sometimes for construction so it took forever to get around an alternative route from Highbury to the Victoria station where the church was located. This week’s service was basically a polar opposite of last weekend. We walked in and immediately were greeted by 5 or 6 people before we even got close to the auditorium (services were held in a school gym). There was a large conglomeration of cultures in this congregation, and you could feel the warmth almost immediately. (I do want to clarify that the congregation at Paddington was very warm and friendly as well, just in a different way.) Standing in this auditorium I could see the integration of cultures and felt very much like Central in a sense. In another sense it felt like I was in Guatemala because of the bubbliness of the atmosphere. My overall feelings towards both services—and even the first service I attended with Dr. Wardwell—are somewhat indescribable because there was so much going on in my head relating to the services and just my thoughts going into this trip.
Calvary Chapel was a nondenominational church, and the worship was very contemporary. They had a band with several guitars, drums, and a keyboard, as well as some singers. We sang some familiar songs, and some unfamiliar. At one point the keyboardist lead us in an old hymn that he said was sung often in his church back home. I thought a lot as we were singing, and pondered what others’ reactions to Calvary Chapel would be. I came to a conclusion that was pretty significant to me because of my previous thoughts. I won’t go into complete detail, but I have recently been very focused on the differences between denominations, struggling to determine what is most pleasing to God and how he wants us to worship him/behave. I don’t know why it’s been such an issue for me, but going to college I encountered a lot of different traditions, some that I’d been exposed to and some I hadn’t. This stretched me, but also has become a stumbling block for me because I now have a hard time going into church and listening for God. Instead I go to church and look to see how the denomination relates to God.
I was thinking during this service and I suddenly felt very sheepish. For the last several months I have been so concerned with doing something wrong that I had forgotten what really mattered. In my paper that I turned in just hours before church, I quoted Luke where Jesus says, “the greatest commandment is this ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength’…the second is like it ‘love your neighbor as yourself’”. I wrote all about how revolutionary that was in the identity of a Christian, but didn’t stop to think how that affected my life. I didn’t realize that I’ve been missing the boat lately. I’ve been so focused on the legalism of Christianity. Not in living a righteous life, but on the practices of different denominations, on what the Bible says about baptism and head coverings and prayer and worship and litany and on and on. Those things are all good points, and are worth examining, but I remembered the point: love.
“God does not look at the things man looks at, man looks at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart”. He is more concerned with the attitude that I go to church with. It doesn’t matter if I cover my head in church if my heart is disrespectful. It doesn’t matter if I dance in the aisles of a church if I’m doing it for show. It doesn’t matter how pretty the church building is if the worship inside is meaningless! Sure a beautiful building can inspire you to praise God, but by golly, we’re so focused on outward things that we miss the whole point of worship! It’s not about the rules. Yeah, Paul gave us a good instruction guide in the New Testament, and I think that we should follow those concepts, but I don’t think that God is pleased by the disunity among Christians over the little details. I believe that as I stood in that church service God was pleased by the worship in Calvary Chapel, and also by the worship in Paddington Church, as well as the worship in Guatemala, and El Salvador and the US. Wherever our hearts are focused on God, he is pleased. I only wish that I were better able to convey the truth about love better. I try very diligently to live a life pleasing to Christ, and if I can’t even remember his most important commandment, and instead get mired down with miniscule details, then there is something wrong with that. Something needs to change.
That’s a small glimpse into many of my thoughts on church and worship. I’m going to move on now because I could go on for pages about my questions, frustrations, and revelations. After church Katie, Renee, Erin and I took a different route home in attempt to expedite the process. It was a failure due to the traffic from the Chinese New Year and the closure of several lines, but we had fun in the process. We navigated our way successfully through unknown routes without the aid of map and eventually made it home in time to eat a late lunch and take a short rest before heading out again. We planned to head to the Chinese New Year in Leicester Square around 4, but left earlier due to the traffic. A group of 15 of us head out from the Highbury Centre and took the 19 bus all the way downtown where we met David, who somehow found our bus and walked alongside it, who was stuck there after church due to tube closures. After we got off the bus we were overwhelmed by the massive throng of people and the many dragons (which are actually lions according to Laura) winding from shop to shop.
Our group got separated, not surprising due to the number of us, and so half of us wandered through the streets and to Trimulchio’s Square where we stood near the stage and watched the performers who brought in the New Year. Some of the performers were decent, but a few of them were really cool. We saw the Guinness book of world records holder for the most number of hula hoops. She could twirl 105 hoops at one time. She started with one and worked her way up to 6 or 7 on stage, which was incredible looking. She had one on her right foot, left knee, hips, ribcage, shoulders, and one on each arm. As if that weren’t sweet enough she then had 50-75 metal hoops brought out to her and she crawled inside them, and after some show proceeded to move her whole body in such a way that kept all hoops suspended around her.
Eventually we became cold enough that we wanted to walk around, and so we wandered around until the fireworks began at 6pm. They were INCREDIBLE. Not the kind that goes into the air and explodes like on the fourth of July. Instead, they were arranged in a wide circle around a park square, and they went off in progression unlike any display I’ve ever seen. It was a very rewarding way to end the evening.
I came back and chatted with Cate, video chatted with my parents, then Andrew, and then I joined Katie, Daniel and David to chat with Paul and Stew. It was great to have contact with so many people from back home, even if briefly. After that we played rook for a few hours, only this time we switched partners and where Daniel and I had been creamed by Katie and David, I came out on top this time.
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