Week #15 First Baptists Church of Sterling

It only took a few months, but it finally happened…We ran into someone from work at one of our church escapades.  And there was no hiding because this was the first week Brian felt ‘called’ to stand when they ask visitors to stand, who does that?  Standing during the visitor recognition time is just asking to be saved, has he learned nothing?   I know what you’re thinking ‘that is not awkward, people go to churches all the time,’ and it wouldn’t be awkward at all if it was the lady from the office down the hall or we were not the only white people in the church, but it was someone on my team, and we were in fact the only white people. 

So…why are you and your Caucasian husband at the First Baptist Church?  I had to explain.  I tend not to discuss this little project at work, turns out most people love inviting you to their church but tend not to love snarky comments about it on your facebook page.  So thankfully, we kinda loved this church.   

It was just the church we needed after a long night of drinking cheap charity event cabernet and partying it up at the Crown Plaza with the over 40 crowd.  So this was our inaugural Baptist church experience, and I’m not going to lie, I had a different idea of what Baptist would be like.  This was not an urban church, well except in the way white people use “urban” but mean “black” because somehow we think that makes us sound less racist.  Regardless, this was a suburban church in the second wealthiest county in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  So anyway, suburban predominantly African-American Baptists in the Mid-Atlantic might be slightly different than the white working-class Baptist in Jackson, Mississippi that I had in mind. 

Anyway, Week #15 First Baptists Church of Sterling was much better than what I anticipated.  We were greeted with a hug…side note, hugs from strangers are ok at church, not at the mall and most certainty not ok on the metro, even accidental metro hugs stemming from a night of drinking and a failure to hold on when the train jerks forward…not OK! No matter what Brian says, that lady did not appreciate it, and I’m pretty sure his “hug” smushed her leftover Pizzeria Uno, the cheese was probably all stuck to the pizza box, yuck.  Regardless, church hugs = ok, metro hugs= ruined leftovers.  

Once inside the church, there was plush movie theater seating and a kick ass choir positioned in a loft above the stage.  The band sat below the choir on the left side of the stage, and the right was reserved for the podium and two thrown-like chairs for the pastor and co-pastor.   Obviously the choir was Boyz II Men amazing, Boyz II Men circa 1994’s End of the Road  not Boyz II Men circa 2009 headlining a Princess Cruise to Cozumel, and the congregation was into it too.  It is the type of church where you feel how much it means to the people there and how connected they are to it, and that makes it real.  After a few songs, the church announcement lady came to the podium to well give announcements, and I swear, no joke, every other word was “amen”…”the young adult group meets after the service, amen, bible study is on Wednesday, amen…”

Still I followed that, but then it came time for the collection, and here is where I got a little confused.  It could have been the red wine hangover daze, or the fact that this church didn’t serve jr. bacon cheese burgers, and I needed one so bad…The point is I wanted some morning Wendys…oh wait that wasn’t the point. The point was we knew it was collection time, that was clear, we’d put our money in the envelope and filled out the visitor card that was presented as I stood/hunched during “stand while we all stare at the visitors time”.  What I didn’t get was why everyone started walking.  We just stood there with our envelopes in hand as people walked by.  Then we caught on, it was reverse collection.  Instead of the basket coming to you, you had to follow the procession up to the collection basket…got it.  Good call too, it is way too easy to quickly pass the basket without making an addition, and who will judge you anyway, the one usher who maybe saw?  Not here, everyone sees.  You know that’s some gossip you don’t need at Wednesday’s bible study. “Sandra never donates. I always told you that girl was stingy…”

Shortly after the choir and the donation trek, they brought on the mime ministry.  Brian claimed that he had seen a mime ministry before, I had not.  It was a group in black outfits with red suspenders and white Jabbawockeez* style painted faces who mimed a song about Jesus.  They were good, pretty much what you would think a mime ministry would be I guess.  Interesting, but then it got really good, the men’s choir came back to the choir loft, and apparently Cee-Lo Green goes to this church so the men’s choir was pretty awesome.  Then they asked if we were ready for the Word, and given the cheers from the congregation, we were!

The pastor got up from his thrown-chair where he was seated next to the “co-pastor” and spread the Word.  Before I get into the sermon, I must provide the compulsory description of his wardrobe, my only real consistent commentary from week to week.   So first let’s talk about co-pastor, she was in a normal skirt suit, no robes, but some nice long weave.  Not the 99-cent weave I glued into my roommate’s hair in college, the good kind, from India.  The pastor wore a black robe dress thing over his clothes with Knights Templar style red crosses embroidered on the chest.  And it was super cute that he referred to her as “co-pastor” even thought she is also his wife.  He said something about how the car he was driving when he first met “co-pastor” didn’t have AC so it was time for a new car…it was cute.

OK wardrobe side-note over, back to the sermon.  The energy was palpable, and the message was basically: “don’t forget how you got where you are…God!” I think my favorite part was when the pastor mentioned folks who claimed they “pulled themselves up from their own ‘boot-strings,’ but forgot who gave them feet.”  For the record that was God, God gave you the feet.”  Pastor was so, so right!  I especially hate when middle-class, American white people make this claim.  The whole “I’m the reason that I’m successful, my hard work, my gusto, me, me, me.”  BS!  I have a meaningful career, a graduate level education (not in English, creative writing or journalism obviously, but still), I have an awesome husband who willingly proof reads my weekly humor, mostly at his expense, and my biggest problem this week was that Nordstrom’s did not have the white True Religion jeans I wanted in my size.  Something tells me that if I was born in a brothel in Bangladesh, that may not have been my biggest concern this week.  I’m of average intelligence, I work pretty hard, but a lot of good that would do me if I had been born in a rural village outside of Kandahar or even a housing project in Anacostia. 

So religious or not, pastor and co-pastor were right on.  You better appreciate that someone or something bigger than you plays a pretty large hand in how things turn out in your life. I think that everyone left First Baptist knowing that.  I’m sure of it, because periodically, pastor would say “I wish someone would agree that it is God that got you here!” and people were agreeing and cheering and saying “amen.” 

*Jabbawockeez were the season one winners the MTV reality sensation ABDC**

** ABDC stands for America’s Best Dance Crew and features Mario Lopez, JC Chasez, Lil Mama and D-Trix***

*** Mario Lopez is best know for his ground breaking role as Saved By the Bell’s AC Slater, the hunky football star who together with his 4 friends participated in every possible high school sport, club and activity.  JC Chasez was a founding member of the hit boy band N’Sync, no not the gay one or the famous one or the one who go chubby, the cute one.  I have no idea how Lil Mama or D-Trix are culturally relevant, and it’s just not worth one more click on Wikipedia to find out, sorry.  

Week #14 Baha'i Center

We did it, I think we found a new religion!  Literally in both senses: a religion we had never heard of before this week, and one we very well might join.  This morning started like most Sundays, when I woke Brian up bright and early at 9:45am he rolled over and murmured “I’m kinda over this whole church every week thing.”  I explained that a good part of the population does this every Sunday for their entire lives, upwards of 3,000 to 4,000 times, we’ve gone about 11.  He shut up and put his church shoes on.  Off we were to a brand new religion; not in the sense that Episcopal would be new, in the sense that I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it new.  We’d driven by the building several times, and to be honest, I thought it was something Jewish.  I think because their emblem is a star, granted it looks nothing like the Star of David, but when driving by these things can be blurry.  Turns out it was not a Synagogue, but the Northern Virginia Baha’i Center.  Not sure what that means? Neither did we.  We thought maybe it was the Shriners, but I am not even sure why.  So I looked it up THANKFULLY, and I was sold right away (I will explain why thankfully is in caps later).

As mentioned in meditation week, the non Christian religions do not always meet Sundays at 10am for 60 minutes.  The Baha’is were no exception, and here is where it got hilarious.  So you know when you arrive somewhere too early or you’re not sure if you’re in the correct place and you just want to blend in to avoid any uncomfortable interactions.  Don’t pretend, we’ve all been there, and over time we have all developed little coping mechanisms to make ourselves appear less out of place…going to the restroom, pretending to be on our phones, reading whatever is posted on a nearby bulletin board, then pretending to text…Again don’t act like you’ve never done one of these, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen one person do them all of them in about 7 minutes.  To be honest, it was not even that uncomfortable.  We were clearly in a religious facility, I checked the website earlier in the morning to verify there was a devotional at 10:30am. So the main auditorium room was completely empty, and although there were people milling around, there didn’t appear to be any substantial gathering, but seriously it was not that uncomfortable that Brian needed to leave me alone in the hallway to pretend to use the restroom twice!  Finally, we saw people entering a small room where some chairs were surrounding a lady speaking.  We said what the heck and entered the room and sat in the back, and after about 10 minutes we realized they were only talking about children’s summer camp.  Brian whispered lets go, but he could tell I wasn’t ready to leave, so he pulled out the ole fake cell phone call, got up and left me by myself, but at this point I was nervous that if I didn’t follow I’d find him waiting in the car.

So we walked back out to the hall and fortunately one of us was brave enough to make eye contact with a stranger, who kindly informed us that the devotional would start shortly after the summer camp meeting.  I told him so, but oh well at least he hadn’t left the building.  Baha’i devotionals are typically held in a person’s home so this group was quite small.  And this is why I was thankful that I’d done some research and had a serious interest in this faith, because we were asked what brought us here.   Before I get into the devotional experience; I want to provide some background.  By now I’m a seasoned religious author and if I knew nothing about it, I’m betting 6 of my 7 readers don’t either. 

The Baha’is believe that throughout history, God (just the one, they are monotheistic) has revealed Himself to humanity through a series of divine Messengers, whose teachings guide and educate us and provide the basis for the advancement of human society. These Messengers have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. They believe these religions come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God.  Wait, dwell on that one for a minute.  Religions are not exclusionary but progressive, Jesus was not the only messenger nor was Muhammad, others are not wrong, maybe instead we are all right.  Maybe God is smart enough to send us the messenger we need at the time we need it.  Wow think how many wars would have been prevented if everyone went to the Baha’i website.  Literally two US wars that are going on right now would just end, trillions of dollars could be freed up, we could buy books for poor kids or asparagus for diabetics (type 2).  

Of all these messengers, Baha’is believe that Bahá’u’lláh is the latest.  Bahá’u’lláh lived in 19^th century Tehran, and spent much of his life in a Persian prison.  Scratch that, “Persian” prison makes it sound like it would have luscious rugs and couscous.  He was in a straight up Iranian prison.  That sounds more accurate.  Why you ask, we all know modern day Tehran as a diverse cosmopolitan city welcoming to all faiths and religious traditions.  It is almost hard to believe that 150 years ago you could lose your freedom for suggesting a profit apart from Muhammad or equality for women.  Boy how time changes things, but during the time Bahá’u’lláh was living his message of unity, the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family, and the oneness of religion was blasphemy.  Plus the whole prison and rags story kind of fits with the messenger from God MO. 

Bahá'u'lláh said, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens,” and that, as foretold in all the sacred scriptures of the past, now is the time for humanity to live in unity.  Eventually people started to listen and I see why; it all makes sense.  Bahá'u'lláh wrote many religious texts and prayers during his life, and the ones I’ve read all seem pretty logical.  Although the Baha’i faith follows Bahá'u'lláh’s specific teachings, they also recognize that there will be other messengers after him, also makes sense. 

So now that you have an idea of what they believe in, we can get back to our actual experience.  The Baha’i members meet regularly for devotionals that involve reading prayers followed by reading from Bahá'u'lláh’s teachings and discussing the teachings.  Once Brian stopped pretending to be on his phone, we joined into the devotional.  There were about 7 people so we had to introduce ourselves and admit we were new.  Luckily we were genuinely interested in the religion so the whole experience was welcoming and interesting. 

There were two major things I took away from the devotional, well 3: #1 the reading talked about the “fault covering eye” the concept that you look at every person with an eye that covers their faults, you only focus on the good even if it is small.  Brian seriously does this, with everyone, all of the time, it’s annoying.  It is common sense really, but the kind of common sense thing that it helps to be reminded of periodically.  We literally both mentioned the phrase twice this week so I guess it sank in. #2 the reading also mentioned that we cannot “afford to waste one ounce of energy on anything negative.”  Also common sense, but also the kind that is not all that common.  Oh and #3 was really the fact that this was the first service where we both took away something meaningful. 

Some other fun Baha’i facts, there is no clergy, the devotionals are led by volunteers and so is the religious council.  They follow a 19 month annual calendar with 19 days a month and have 19 holy days a year.  The followers were very diverse, perhaps a slightly larger than average percent of Middle Eastern descent, but a good blend of everyone.  They don’t recruit, and they had a library in the center with books from all faiths.  I’ve really got no jokes here, just facts, so I’ll make sure that next week is funny.

Week # 13: Southview Community Church

We need to be better at planning our Sunday mornings; our typical trend is to wake up late, google some churches, find the closest one that has an 11:00am service and hope to serendipitously stumble into something interesting.  So far it has kinda worked out, but along the way I have created a word document with about four churches listed and a date they plan to have a special event.  Third on the list was Southview Church baptism Sunday.  Since we attended a baptism last week, I thought maybe we could venture into something more interesting, but baptism Sunday was at 11:00am and about two miles away so who were we kidding…

Week #13 Southview Community Church-baptism week!  Southview church is a member of the NorthStar Church Network, the Willow Creek Association, and the Southern Baptist Convention.  I have no idea what any of that means, I thought maybe it meant it was Baptist, but it seemed more like all of the other non-denomination churches.  The funny thing about this choice was that I was only about 5% sure it was even baptism Sunday.  When I visited the website at 10:45am Sunday morning, there was no mention of baptism at all.  I told myself and Brian that it was probably only advertised a few months ago when you could sign up to be baptized and that is why there was no longer any mention of it on the website.  By this point it was 10 til 11:00 so baptism or not, we didn’t have much choice. 

It was a small church, well normal sized really just not a mega church.  Again there was no altar, only a stage for the band in front of a modern stone wall with built-in projection screens.  The band played a modern Christian rock song or two before clearing the stage.  Then from out of nowhere, the pastor appeared in the wall behind the stage.  No, not a typo, IN THE WALL!  It wasn’t the second coming, and the Jesus walking through the wall reading was actually last week.  Turns out the middle section of the wall was actually a Plexiglas incased pool of water.  I’m not sure how I didn’t notice it at first, maybe because water is clear (this water was evidently not from the river Jordan) or maybe I was distracted by the band, or maybe it’s because who thinks there will be a fishless, lidless aquarium in the wall of a church.  All I can say is that I was not at all ready for a man to appear waist deep in water.  Just imagine, sitting there peacefully in church, the opening songs are over, so you’re expecting someone to walk on stage/altar and give an intro or start a sermon, or say “welcome.” No matter what you expect, it is normally a given that no one will be soaking wet.  But it was in fact baptism week and apparently that meant a grown man would be waist deep in a baptismal pool that’s built square into the center of the wall, who knew!?  There was no introduction, no dry person came out first to inform the congregation of what was about to happen.  It was straight from band to baptism or as they called it “going public with your faith.”

How does one go public with their faith? Come to church in gym shorts and join the pastor in the dunk tank of course – carnie optional.  Shortly after the pastor appeared, the first baptisee joined the pool (I’m assuming behind the stone wall there were some steps leading down to the water, but from the pews it looked one mini stone castle away from being a fancy built-in aquarium).  Regardless, now there were two grown men in gym shorts waist deep in water.  The second swimmer confirmed that he was ready to go public with his love of Jesus and was then dunked completely backwards into the tank, full head under water.  To ensure no baptismal water went down the wrong pipe, the pastor held a white cloth over the dunkee’s nose and mouth with one hand and supported the back of his head with the other hand.  I guess the best visual would be to picture someone being chloroformed in Shamu’s tank at SeaWorld. Eliminate the killer whale, splash zone, $6 sodas and shrink the tank a bit; add one grown man being willingly chloroformed by another and that is what going public with your faith in Jesus looks like.  And just like Sea World, after the dunk everyone cheered, us included.  How could you not, there was something moving about the gesture, and somehow it did not seem as unusual as you’d think.  Then the process repeated, this time with a chick. 

Baptism is a big part of most Christian faiths, and most of us have been to several, but this was my first that didn’t include an infant in a white outfit.  The rest of the service was fairly normal.  The pastor did eventually towel off and preach in khakis and a polo (sorry that the only consistency in my weekly report is on the dress of the rector, but it is interesting sometimes there are robes, sometimes suites, sometimes polos). Today’s casual dress could have been due to the per-sermon wade, but the church had a casual vibe.

The day before the service was community volunteer day so most of the service consisted of members speaking about the flowers they had planted/houses they had painted/and old people they had visited.   That part made me happy.  To me that is more an exercise of faith than sitting in a pew for an hour once a week.  In a past career when I regularly planned volunteer opportunities, I never loved when people said they could not volunteer because they had to attend church.  Is that really what Jesus would do, he would say “No I can’t spend time with children who have Down Syndrome today I’m going to go sit and listen to someone talk about my dad for an hour instead.” My blog, my rant! But thanks Southview, I’m glad that you got out there and volunteered, once you dried off that is.