Shawna R. B. Atteberry

During our meeting yesterday, those of us starting new ministries in the neighborhoods of Chicago decided to name the umbrella group we will all fall under Grace Fellowship Church of the Nazarene. The church starting in my home on January 6 is now the South Loop Grace Fellowship. We will be starting at 11:00 a.m. at 40 E. 9th St. #1305. For more information click here. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me.

I know my blogging has been very sporadic lately. Tracy still has the liver infection, and the last two months have been filled with side effects from the drugs he is taking. He’s in D. C. right now for tests. They think one of the problems might be a blockage in the liver, which can happen with infections. They ran one test, but it was inconclusive, so they will run another one on Monday. The good news is the CT Scan showed that the infection is smaller. Yeah!

Both my sleeping and working schedules are way off. Neither of us have really had a schedule for the last couple of months because of the flexibility one must have when a spouse has a liver infection. Right now I am trying to getting back into a regular sleeping schedule of going to bed between and 11:00 and 11:30 p.m., and actually getting sleep within an hour instead of laying in bed until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. My goal right now is to get up at 8:00 a.m. and eventually move it to 7:00-7:30 a.m. This week has had mixed results. I think part of the reason is that Tracy left Wednesday, so I had to adjust to sleeping alone. Since part of the week I slept well and got up when I needed to, I’m hoping this next week will start to even out. I want my work hours to be 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m. and 1:00–6:00 p.m. I have found if I don’t have regular office hours, I tend to work off and on day and night and feel guilty about doing personal things like shopping, cooking, sewing, etc. I need to know when I’m working, so I know when I can do other things.

I’ve talked to our District Superintendent, and the District is creating an umbrella organization for all the different neighborhood fellowships to be a part of. That way we will have our non-profit status and can open bank accounts, and the District doesn’t have to do all this paperwork and legal stuff for each little group. I think it is a good plan. I am renaming the South Loop Nazarene Church to a fellowship, since we are going to meet in my home and be a home church, and because that is the way it seems the other groups are going. All of us starting new Nazarene ministries in the city are getting together tomorrow to worship and make some plans as to structure, names, and keeping in communication with each other. I didn’t know that half the people I’ve been emailing about the South Loop ministry had started a group in Hyde Park, so it will be nice to know of what other people are doing and to support each other. After that meeting I will settle on a final name and start putting up flyers in the neighborhood. Yes, Laine, the flyers are going to happen (and I need to email you–how was your vacation?). Laine works in the West Loop and has graciously offered to hang flyers there.

Yes, I am behind on emails as well as reading other blogs and commenting. Right now my two priorities are Tracy and getting ready for services to start in our home. I’m also not writing much right now, which is obvious from my lack of blogging. Hopefully, after the first of the year, I will get back to making the rounds and getting back into what everyone is doing. I miss all of you, but right now I don’t have the time and energy to keep up with everything.

It is amazing how tired you become during the long term illness of a spouse. I had no idea it was possible to worry about someone this much. The last couple of months have been exhausting and frustrating for both of us (him more than me needless to say), mainly due to the side effects. Hopefully, this visit to NIH will be the turn around the bend, and he’ll start feeling better and making some marked improvements.

There has been a change in the South Loop Nazarene Church location. The Condo Board did not want the aerobics room to be scheduled every Sunday for who knows how long, so they denied my request to use it. I should have waited until the board voted before I posted. I’m sorry. Instead of meeting in the aerobics room, we will be meeting in my home, which is #1305. If I do not find a worship leader, then instead of a service, we will begin with a Bible study.

South Loop Nazarene Church is a place where you can know God, be a part of a community, and serve the neighborhood. We are a new church that seeks to follow the teachings of Jesus and deepen our faith through worship, tradition, and service. Everyone is welcome whether you consider yourself a Christian or not. We strive to be a safe place where you can ask questions in a loving community.

We will be starting services on January 6, 2008 from 11:00 a.m.–noon at the Burnham Park Plaza Condominiums. We will be worshiping in my home, #1305, . BPP Condos is located at 40 E. 9th St. (9th and Wabash), and the entrance to our building is on 9th. Tell the doorman to call #1305. There are parking lots across the street on Wabash and behind the building across the street on State. If there’s a Bears game, parking will be sparse and expensive. We are two blocks north of the Roosevelt L Station (red, green, and orange lines), and bus routes 29 and 62 run up and down State. Get off at 9th St. and walk a block east.

We are also looking for a worship leader. If you’re interested please contact me.

Let me know what you think. I really, really need a worship leader. If you play guitar and sing, I am interested, please contact me! And please pray for me–especially about the worship leader! Thank you. I appreciate all of your support and prayer.

Shawna

I will not be keeping my pastoral office hours this week due to the holidays. I am also changing my hours on Monday. I will still be at Cafe Mediterra, but I will be there 2:00–4:00 p.m. instead of in the morning. I hope this didn’t inconvenience anyone this morning.

Shawna

I visited Grace Place on October 14. Due to all things going on in my life, I am now posting about it. Grace Place is a small congregation: they run 40-50 in their Sunday 10:00 a.m. service. I was very happy to see a small congregation doing well in the city. Before this the churches I’ve visited were huge. It was nice to see something smaller, since I will be beginning very small.

What I had never seen before was that no one was up front during the singing, prayer or psalm reading. The piano would introduce the song, and the priest, Father Tim Curtis, would sing loudly to get us started. He also led from the side in reading the Psalm. The only time people were up front were for the reading of the Scripture, the sermon, and Eucharist. After the songs, prayer, and Scripture Readings, there was sermon. The associate pastor, Sonny Lopez, preached. It was nice to see a woman preaching. I haven’t seen that since I stopped attending the First United Methodist Church with my husband last year (they have two female pastors on staff who preach regularly). She preached a sermon I needed to hear: that Christ is the one who empowers us. We walk in Christ’s power not our own.

After the sermon was a time of community prayer. After Father Tim prayed the pastoral prayer, people were invited to voice their prayers and thanksgivings, which they did. There were several prayer requests, thanksgivings, and praises. It was a time of true communal worship. I think I am going to be doing this in my own services. After passing the peace and the offering, we gathered around the altar for communion. Their altar is circular, so we all could stand around it as a family and receive the elements. Then there was the sending out and benediction. One of the really nice things about this service is they have cut out all of the getting up and down, bowing, genuflecting, and crossing yourself. So you didn’t have to worry about what you should be doing if you didn’t grow up in a high liturgical tradition.

I really liked the small community feel. But that is a personal preference. I lived in a small town and grew up in small churches. The thing I really liked is that this church is a community. There were coffee and snacks after the service, and everyone talked. I was warmly welcomed and talked with several people about the church. The same thing happened when we passed the peace during the service. Everyone took the time to talk, and there was a lot of hugging.

On Wednesday Grace Place has a noon Eucharist, which is a very simple service. There is no music and the liturgy is cut down to its basic components. It’s a quiet service of reflection and short sermon then Eucharist. It is a nice oasis in the middle of busy week if you work, live, or go to school in the Printers Row area. Centering Prayer is 12:00-12:15, and the Eucharist is 12:15-12:45 p.m.

Grace Place is very intentional about community and worshiping as a community. I really enjoyed worshiping with them and getting to know some of the people. I’ve been dropping in on the Wednesday Eucharist every other week or so.

I want to finish the post with the creed they use. They do not use The Apostle’s Creed or The Nicene Creed in their liturgy. They use this creed from A New Zealand Prayer Book/He Carakia Mihinare o Aotearoa:

You O God, are supreme and holy.
You create our world and give us life.
Your purpose overarches everything we do.
You have always been with us.
You are God.

You, O God, are infinitely generous,
good beyond all measure.
You came to us before we came to you.
You have revealed and proved
your love for us in Jesus Christ,
who lived and died and rose again.
You are with us now.
You are God.

You, O God, are Holy Spirit.
You empower us to be your gospel in the world.
You reconcile and heal; you overcome death.

You are our God. We worship you.

The picture is of a service at Grace Place from their website: Grace Church Chicago.

See also:
Willow Creek Chicago
A Via Media for Worship
W Is for Worship

I stood before her tomb: St. Catherine of Sienna at Sant Maria Soph de Minerva, Rome’s only Gothic church. Her remains were entombed in the high altar, which was gorgeous. Her likeness had been sculpted and laid in a glass sarcophagus. I gave an offering, lit a candle, and said The Lord’s Prayer. Later I thought of how I would have asked her to pray for me, if I prayed to saints.

There were were a few things Catherine did not like about the Catholic Church the same way there are a few things I do not like about the Church of the Nazarene. In fact, when we were in Rome, I was seriously considering leaving my denomination because of decisions made on the general leadership level that I thought were nonbiblical and unethical. I didn’t know if I could stay a member–especially an ordained minister–when I doubted decisions and motives at the highest levels of our leadership.

Catherine was born in 1347 in Siena, Italy. This was the time of the Great Schism in the Catholic Church with France and Italy vying for power. 75 years earlier French cardinals and the monarchy had succeeded in moving the papacy to Avignon, France. A move the Italians saw a betrayal of the highest order. For a time there were two popes because Rome and Italy refused to recognize the French “puppet” pope. By the time Catherine was born the papacy was firmly established in France.

(more…)

The Sunday I attended Willow Creek Chicago Church was the three-ring circus I was expecting and then some. There were good points. The music was good, and they had a string section in addition to the usual praise guitars, drums, and keyboards (I love strings). They also had a small choir plus praise team. There was both drama and dancing. The pastor is a good speaker, and the sermon had interactive aspects. But everything was very “I” and “me” oriented with a “what can God do for me” mentality. There was also the jump from salvation to heaven. We’re saved to go to heaven. There was nothing about building God’s kingdom and being Christ’s ambassadors here on earth. There was a huge emphasis in the sermon that we are made in the image of God, but there was nothing about imaging God to our world. We’re saved to have a private, personal walk with Jesus until we go to heaven. There were also no ties with the church-at-large or the historical church. There was no communion, which didn’t surprise me. There was nothing said at the end of the service about going out to be God’s image in our communities and doing kingdom work.

The Willow Creek service tended to be on the schizoid side. We sang. Then there was the welcome and greeting each other. The sermon was next. The first time I thought the sermon was over was when the drama started. But the sermon continued after that. Then there was a song, and the sermon continued after that and then finally finished. Then more songs. The service was set to get people emotional and elicit an emotional response (one of the final songs was “I Could Only Imagine”–again no hint of “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life” or a more up-to-date song of that vein–only heaven). It was also very personal and very private: Jesus saves me. Jesus loves me. There wasn’t any intentional corporate communal worship outside of shaking hands with a few people. EVERY song revolved around the words “I” and “me.” There was no “we.” There was no corporate sense that we are God’s people here to do God’s will and build God’s kingdom.

The Sunday I attended was their one year anniversary, so they had a slide show. 95% of their volunteers are for the Sunday morning service. Most of the church’s resources are spent on that one service. There is some community ministry, but considering the church runs 1,200-1,500, it doesn’t seem like a lot. They do have small groups and are starting neighborhood groups that would meet once a month. But again this is around 5% of the volunteers, which is what percentage of the church? And how many people actually attend the small groups? That number was not included in the slide show. Are they getting the substance and grounding they need in the groups? Because they are not getting it Sunday, or that Sunday anyway.

I definitely like William Law’s order of worship better. As I said in my previous post in this series, there are many modes of worship: singing, reading, listening, communal, and sacramental. At Willow Creek the major two modes of worship were singing and preaching with a nod to the communal through a short greeting and offering. Outside of the singing, the congregation sat passively through most of the service except for the few interactive parts of the sermon. And it was a long service due to the anniversary stuff: 1 hour and 45 minutes.

I would like most of my church’s resources to be going out and most of “church” to take place outside the walls of the church. I want most of my volunteers to be out and about making a difference in the world. This is not going to be too big of a problem, since the church I’m planting will start in my living room (I’m planning on starting January 6). And I’m wondering if that’s a good way to start? No upkeep or maintenance expense; we can focus on what we can do in this neighborhood, in this community. How can we be the body of Christ in the South Loop incarnationally while we don’t have a building or formal place to meet? I like those questions. I think I’m going to be doing church very differently from the traditional model. And I’m okay with that, or I’m getting okay with it. If nothing else going to different churches and services helps me solidify my philosophy of ministry and worship. And I think that is a good thing.

Related posts:
W Is for Worship
A Via Media for Worship