I don't have much to report from our weekend: dinner on Friday night and then a mad dash home because one of us may or may not have gotten food poisoning; Saturday we went to Oktoberfest for lunch again with some of Drew's friends and then did our own pub crawl and watched the Ryder Cup; Sunday we tried out another church and then went to visit one of my friends in the hospital because she had her baby on Saturday! She's a little angel sweetie face and I'll post some pics after I go over there tomorrow to help with the bebe!
So like I said, we tried a new church, Dublin Vineyard, on Sunday. This one came recommended to us by John and Natalie (our Amsterdam friends), as well as Suzy from last week's church. It was held in the gym of the YMCA near St. Stephen's Green and while it was a different experience, it wasn't quite as comical as last week's experience with James. Unfortunately.
We walked in and there were a lot of younger people and families and people greeted us but no one came directly up to us and singled us out as newcomers, which I was relieved by. Most people would want someone talking to them and being friendly, but not us! Just let us be. Let us find our seats without incident, thanks. We got some coffee and headed over to sit down and observe everyone. The pastor came over and introduced himself and sat and talked to us all about the church, where we were from, what we're doing here, his background in accounting before he was called to do this, and gave us his phone number if we'd ever like to chat or get some coffee sometime, he'd love it. So that was nice! I have no problem talking to people like that. It's the REAL kooks you gotta watch out for. The service got started with some praise and worship music, led by a Sheryl Crow/Stevie Nicks wannabe with long curly hair that hung in her face who wailed into the mic for about 30 minutes. I didn't know any of the songs and I was reading the church bulletin someone handed me so as not to focus too much on this lady's faults, as I tend to do. I really didn't love her take on worship but Drew, however, LOVED her music and her voice and their whole sound. So that's cool.
Question: when you're in training to be a praise/worship leader, do they tell you it's a MUST to put your whole mouth on the microphone and whisper words softly but distinctly? Because literally everyone who leads the music section at any church I've been to LOVES this practice. They press their lips firmly to the mic and say in a loud whisper "LORD. BE. EXALTED! LORD. THERE is NO ONE. LIKE. YOU. " It makes me cringe. Again, why do these silly minor things bother/affect me so much? Moving on.
After that, they had several teenagers get up and tell the congregation about their experience walking around the city praying for people last weekend. This church appears to be very into...imagery. Or something. And deciphering and trying to understand/communicate the imagery that God has presented them in their heads when they pray. The teenagers would say "Well, we were in a small group, and we started asking God who and what he wanted to do and pray for, and all of us got an image in our minds of a man, with a fedora, and something dealing with addiction. Thirty minutes later we saw a man with a fedora sitting on a park bench and we asked him if we might pray for him and he said yes, and that his father struggles with drug addiction and needs prayer." Everyone started clapping and getting pumped up. I was still a little skeptical but oddly enough, it wasn't entirely as off-putting as I thought it'd be.
Sean the pastor talked about what we can learn from Peter and about evangelizing and having God pour into your life and erase your fear, and then he asked us to pray silently for a bit - and then asked for volunteers who wanted to come up and share what God told them/shared with them in that one prayer. People got up and said random things like "Well...I just saw an image of children running really quickly up to something, and then stopping, and then turning away and running back. And to me, that's like...us running towards God and being excited, and then we stop because something scares us and we turn away. So God is telling me to tell you ALL not to be afraid." And then another guy got up and said "God told me to tell you, Megan, that He's really glad to see you here today." And this shy teenager named Megan smiled awkwardly in her seat, not knowing what to do. And other random shit like that.
THEN the pastor is like "Does someone here have something going on with their elbow? Like a cyst or a knot or something on their elbow and is in a lot of pain?" Crickets. No one responded. Then finally, thankfully, a girl kinda raised her hand and said her elbow hurt and he was like "GREAT! I thought God was putting that on my heart. Let's pray for you after this." So we all sang another song and then he said that the official service was over, but those that wanted to stay after and pray and let the Holy Spirit pour into them would be welcome to. Only like...10 of us left. Drew and I were like "uhh do we stay? What do we do!?" and while I wouldn't have MINDED staying just to see, we just...left. We needed to decompress and process all of it.
All that to say...it was a little different, but it wasn't as cringe-worthy as I thought it would be and it wasn't as off-putting as I thought. They were all very chill in their kookiness. They weren't acting like total nutjobs (except the singer) and they were real and low key. Despite the divinations and all that. Is that stuff....real? Like...I can't figure it out. And I don't know what I believe about that stuff. And I've been kinda thinking the past week about how God speaks to us and tells us things and then these people were just so like..."God told me to say this." I just don't know if I trust that or if people just like to hear themselves talk or what. Very odd but potentially cool if it's true? Who knows.
So that was Sunday. We will probably go back to this one and try it again and see what we think. I'm off to the new gym I joined on Friday to meet with my trainer! Don't you love the start of new gyms/diets/eating plans/workouts when you feel positive and able to take on the world and you ALMOST believe that you can actually stick with something and maybe lose weight? Me too. Happy Monday! Bye for now.
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