Our expedition started at 6am on a rather cold and still dark Sunday morning. Why not drive 5 hours to go to church we had asked ourselves, why not indeed! Earlier in the semester a fellow student and friend, Nate, and I had hatched a plan to travel north(west) to visit Mars Hill and see Rob Bell preach. I have been a fan for many a year now and Nate was a recent convert having seen a number of the
Nooma videos. In fact, while it was always on my mind as something to do it was actually Nate who suggested the trip. I took this as divine blessing of our outing. (Credit must also be heaped on Daen for being willing to let me be gone for Gavin’s entire waking hours).
The weather was rather cooperative once we got a few miles north of our starting point and by they time we came home the sun was shining bright. The trip up there was rather quiet with one stop to fill the tank and empty the bladders, we were on a tight schedule. Nate slept most of the way up only getting home from Florida at 1am that morning! Thankfully another friend, Tony, had chosen to join us and he kept me awake and alert with excellent conversation.
We arrived at the church at 10:45, just in time for the 11am service. The people directing traffic were nice and parked us like we were at Disneyland. I had heard the church was housed in an old mall, and that indeed is true. I’d also heard that they had no real signage or overt advertising, also true. In fact if you didn’t know you would think the YMCA they rent space too was the only thing there. Thankfully the crowd of people heading inside gave the secret away and also gave us a trail to follow. We finally spotted some simple verbiage on the door elevating any doubt that everyone here was for a white sale at Penny’s.
Once inside you are struck by the simplicity of it all. What was necessary to remove was removed but this was, indeed, a mall. Old storefronts were vaguely veiled into rooms for youth, children’s, and baby/toddler ministries. The wide open central walkway once trodden on by parcel carrying patrons now bustled with families and children headed to church. The main worship space itself is easily envisioned as one time department store. I couldn’t help but think with all these people surly they could afford better then the row upon row of plastic chairs that awaited us? The, of course, I realized that they could, …but that they had chosen not too.
They do there service “in the round” with a
central stage with a for sided project screen above it. The musicians each take a place on one side when they play, and they can play! The service actually started with a congregational reading in unison, something I had not expected. We then sang two songs that I latter found out were reworked classic hymns. We then learned a new song and sang one more that was apparent know well by the congregation. For most of the singing the song leader in the band would drop out after the first few words leaving the congregation to sing in one voice alone. I had never experienced that with so many people at once. Being in that space singing was amazing and truly worshipful. I have not experienced anything like it in quite a while and it reminded me how much I missed contemporary musical arrangements.
After the songs Rob bounded onto stage with no fanfare or unnecessary introduction. And, like with every sermon I’ve listened to online, he went strait into the scripture. I, having already grabbed my infamous blue bible, was more then happy to follow along. They put the verse and the page number on the projection screen but not the text themselves. At first I found this odd until I heard the noise of literally thousands of people shuffling the thin pages of bible. I will not soon forget that sound or how amazing it was. People were physically interacting with the book, learning about its different parts and its means of navigation. By touching it, negotiating it, and reading it in community they were coming to understand it, coming to be comfortable with it. This is how it should be.
I will spare you the details of the sermon except to say that you should
download it because it is very much worth the listen. Rob spoke for about forty minutes and concluded with prayer and offered a simple benediction. Then, we were done. Admittedly it was a little jarring at first to just be finished like that. I guess I expected more singing or something to formally close us and bring me down from the high I had listening to him speak. But I wonder if that wasn’t the point though? I can’t say for sure about their intentions but by not giving an overt ending to the service they said to me “Hey, this isn’t over, its just time for you to continue this outside and bring it to the world.”
The three of us then stood around while people began to great each other again and we just took the experience in. While I was looking around I noticed Rob had come off the stage and was just talking with people that came by. I knew I had to say hello before we left so that’s what I did. I had about thirty seconds with him. I told him we had driven up from Ohio to see the church and I thanked him for all he’s done and for being a part of my call to ministry through the teaching of the church. I’m not sure what I expected him to say to that (and I’m not exactly sure what he did say) but he was very nice and gave us his undivided intention during our short moment together. The one thing I can tell you is that the man is tall, much taller then I ever expected.
After this we grabbed some lunch and headed home. On the way back Nate read our New Testament reading aloud (4 of the contested letters of Paul) and we had an interesting discussion around their authorship and their meanings. We arrived back on campus almost exactly 13 hours after we left. It was worth every moment! If you ever get a chance to go you should, you will not be disappointed.
Okay, I’m tired now, I’m going to sleep.
