Church Building Projects: Introduction

That was the destruction of several buildings owned by First Baptist Dallas, to make way for their new building.

For the next few days, I will be writing about church building projects. This was prompted after my visit to First Baptist Dallas, and learning about their 115 million dollar new sanctuary. Please go here to watch the videos about the new project and see what it will be like.

First Presbyterian Church

(Read my disclaimer here.)

            The fourth church I visited was First Presbyterian Church. I immediately noticed that the people were quite friendly helping me find my way to the sanctuary, and making sure to introduce themselves when I asked for help. In fact, at the end of the service, one of the members actually recommended a Baptist church for me to try when she heard I was a Baptist.

           

            The building was Greco-Roman style and looked like it could have doubled as a county courthouse. Inside, it was much smaller than First Methodist or First Baptist; it could probably seat a maximum of 600 people, and it looked like there were only 300 or 400 people in it. The sanctuary was fairly plain, lacking the beauty of the other three sanctuaries. The audience was entirely Caucasian with not a single minority in the building. They also all appeared to be middle to upper class.

            The service was very much like the Methodist service, with a liturgical service that was not nearly as Catholic as the Episcopalian church was. They also had a choir and organ arrangement.

           

            The sermon was a little bit better than the other two (Jeffress still has been the best, sadly). It was over Exodus 17, and sought to answer the question, “Is God with us?” Apparently due to the lack of growth over the last few years some in the church had started to wonder about this. The pastor wrote the problem off by saying that urban churches have trouble growing, and pointed to things like their feeding ministry, The Stewpot, as proof that God is with them.

            The church has a serious ethnicity issue. In a majority-minority area a church that is 100% white will not, and cannot, grow. Their feeding ministry is great; I think that is something every church should try and do! The service was interesting, but not as moving as the Episcopalian while still having the same liberalism issues. If you are going “high church” you might as well go all out.

Church of the Incarnation

           (Read my disclaimer here.)

           My third visit took me to the Church of the Incarnation, which is Episcopal (Anglican). I walked into the building, which reminded me of a small cathedral on the inside. The ceiling was vaulted, and it had internal pillars as supporting walls. It had beautiful stained glass.

           

I arrived at the church twenty minutes early, so I found a seat in the church. The choir was still practicing, and I was immediately struck by their beauty. Their melody was classic sounding, performed perfectly and with incredible power. The entire sanctuary filled with their music. Combined with the architecture and the style of music, I immediately felt as if I were in a European cathedral.

            The service started with a procession led by the choir and concluded by the bishop, wearing his mitre. They went to the front and started moving through the liturgy. I felt out of place with the liturgy since it was so ritualized, and as a Baptist that is very different. The music was beautiful throughout, and the congregation (about 200 people—less than half of the seats were occupied) participated in ways that I rarely see Baptists participate.

            The “sermon” should not have been called that at all. The minister simply talked about keeping the heart warm in regards to loved ones, and not letting it grow cold. He gave some ideas about what made it go cold, and what warmed it up more. He never read any Scripture.

            When it came time to participate in Communion, I refrained, since I hold different beliefs on it from the Anglican church. They very orderly proceeded to the front as is common to anyone who has ever participated in the Mass.

            One of the strangest things was when I walked outside after the service. I looked over to where the chapel was, and saw the people exiting from the simultaneous contemporary service. On my left was the traditional service: most people were in suits and nice dresses, and the bishop was in his robes. On my right was the contemporary service: the worship leader had an unbuttoned collared shirt and blue jeans, and the congregants were all in blue jeans and t-shirts or open button down shirts. The contrast was remarkable!

           

The music was beautiful, the sermon was lacking, and I disagree with the church on numerous theological issues. But, there was something in me that connected with the ritual of it all. I also recognized that if I would have walked in from the street as a non-believer, I would not have found how to follow Christ in that service (I would think), although I would learn the Nicene Creed.

The End of an Era

            If you visited my blog today, compared to yesterday, you would have noticed an incredible shift. For starters, my URL eliminated the dash, so it is now "joshuahebert.blogspot.com". But, more noticeable is the new title, tagline, format, and look.

I once was heavily involved in politics and was a good social conservative. However, as I learned about the gospel and that there was an extreme political element in it I realized that what the gospel actually teaches is not what the Republican agenda, and in some places, it is quite different. To that end, I more or less let my blog die, just not feeling right about taking the role of “Republican Blogger in Exile”.

However, I recently started blogging again, and decided that I needed turn the page and to retool my blog to make it a closer reflection of what I want to spend the majority of my time talking about. My main topics will be Ecclesiology and Political Theology, although I imagine I will dabble in other topics as well. I will leave all the old political posts in the archives.

Over the next few weeks, I will continue modifying this site so that it has a little more information, and is more accessible to the visitor. Is it the end of an era for me? Yes. But, it is the beginning of an even brighter era!

First United Methodist Church

            (Read my disclaimer here.)

Next, I went to First United Methodist Church of Dallas. It was like stepping back in time. The plain wooden platform at the front. The stained glass windows. The old fashioned pews. I almost immediately realized that I was woefully underdressed: almost every single man in the sanctuary was wearing a coat and tie. Even quicker than that, I realized there were no trappings of many common Baptist churches: no screen, no baptistery, no praise band, in fact there was not even an orchestra.

Music was provided by a very large choir of 100-150 members. They were extremely talented and accompanied only by a sole pipe organ. The music was mostly unknown to me, but when they closed the service with, Be Thou My Vision, they sounded so good I quite literally got chills.

I witnessed an infant baptism for the first time. Their understanding of baptism is a promise by the parents and church to raise the child to be a part of the community—much like a baby dedication service in a Baptist church. I felt very uncomfortable watching.

The service was very orderly, with the congregation all standing at certain times, with no prompting from the bulletin or the minister of music, which made me feel very awkward since I did not know what I was supposed to do. They also all responded together with a call-and-response that was in the bulletin.

As the service progressed, I felt very restless, and it took me a minute to figure out why I was restless. Then it hit me: it was so quiet! There was a lot of talking, and very little music. The audience stayed almost completely silent except when they were supposed to say something.

The pastor, Dr. Fielder, read through the beatitudes, then left the text, and talked about the church receiving a new parking deal, and how if people are hospitable, and non violent, then God would reward them.

In short, I am not a Methodist, but there were definitely some elements from the service, such as the very traditional music that, that would be nice to see from time to time in a Baptist church.

First Baptist Church of Dallas

DISCLAIMER: I know that every church has its own weaknesses and strengths, and that every denomination has its own weaknesses and strengths. No one is perfect, neither is any church. I also know that most churches have ministries to the community that you cannot see from visiting, nor can you judge an entire denomination by one church. Furthermore, I am a Baptist, so I am approaching each of these churches with a Baptist’s belief system. I do not mean to attack anyone, just I have heard people ask me about my experiences and I wanted to write about them, positive and negative.

I moved into Dallas from my little suburb town and thus left my church that I had been a member of since I moved to the Metro-Plex, due to commute time and gas money. At the end of the semester, I had several preaching opportunities, as well as a couple times to lead worship through music ministry; this prevented me from church shopping, and then I went home for surgery followed by the holidays. After visiting a few Baptist congregations upon my return, I decided it would be insightful to spend a few weeks visiting other denominations, since I have only ever been in Baptist services (minus a few times when I went to Mass). I decided to use the “main” or preeminent church of each denomination as my destination of choice.

I started with the First Baptist Church of Dallas, pastored by Robert Jeffress. As I walked through the Criswell Center, I marveled at the size of the building. I found my way into the balcony of the historic sanctuary and spent ten minutes just enjoying the beautiful architecture inside. For how large the other buildings were, it shocked me how “small” the sanctuary was. I also noticed that seats seemed to be put in every possible place, and almost all of them were filled.

Once the service started, it immediately struck me as a grand production. Everything was perfectly orchestrated, even the singers in the praise chorus (which had separated from the choir) had tape marking off where they were supposed to stand.

The musicians were talented, but nothing to write home about. The Worship Pastor seemed to think his job title was “Lead Soloist”, by the way he sang—leaving the melody to go do his own thing. The talented orchestra added a lot. I could not really even tell there was a choir there, except that I could see them standing.

As an extra feature, they had a guest speaker—the colonel in charge of the capture of Saddam Hussein. I found problems with the church giving a standing ovation when talking about the harm his soldiers did to another human being, but that is a discussion for another time.

Robert Jeffress’ sermon was not the best. He preached from Ephesians on having your feet properly shod. He did go back to the historical use of Roman soldiers’ shoes, and how they had spikes to help them hold in place in battle. He had quite a bit of psychological aspects in the sermon—somewhat hard to describe.

At the invitation, a few people joined the church, which showed that people obviously enjoyed the service and preaching.
I honestly could not get over the 115 million dollar new buildings that are being constructed. They were a major place where attention was pointed in discussions, and in the large model of the new building, and the massive tv dedicated to only playing information on the new building. I could never be a part of this church simply because I can’t see any way to justify so much money on a building.

Poverty and Christianity

I am in poverty--as defined by the government, that is. I don't own a TV, I share a one bedroom apartment with a roommate, and I don't even own a suit. To many, this sounds pretty scant, but yet, as I sit in my heated room, surfing the internet, I realize that I would be considered a rich man in most of the world. Why? I have three meals a day, I have clean water, I have indoor plumbing, I can make my small apartment cool in the summer and warm in the winter, I have a car that allows me to travel in comfort. For much of the world, they could not even dream of having these kinds of possessions and options in life.

Almost 3 billion people in the world live on less than two dollars a day; for those of you doing the math at home, that is almost half of the world's population. Two dollars a day. That is less than most would spend making a trip to McDonald's, but 3 billion people survive on that. Here is another fact to chew on: 36 million people die every year from starvation. Statistically speaking, in the time it took me to type that sentence, 5 people starved to death. And not in the metaphorical sense that everybody uses to express that they are hungry. Five very real people died because they simply did not have enough food to survive any longer.

Enter the church. Poverty has been around a long time. During the time Jesus walked the earth somewhere between 90 and 95 percent of the population was in poverty, and the other 5-10% were extremely wealthy by their standards. On multiple occasions, Jesus fed massive crowds. In Matthew 18:16-22, he told the rich young man that to follow Him, the man would have to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. Was this just a random saying that He told but didn't really mean? If we believe God is just, and we believe that Jesus is God, then we cannot say that He would randomly turn a man away to an eternity of punishment because of a random moment when He said something He did not really mean. That means that we have to seriously consider this command of Him. Even if Christ did not mean for everyone to sell their possessions, He made it clear that His followers were to help take care of the poor (Deut 15:7; Matt 25:35, etc). The church was never intended to cure poverty, as there simply are not enough Christians to go around, but one of its jobs IS to lessen poverty.

However, the church has by and large failed at this job. There are many people who do great things to try and ease poverty, but this is not the majority in the church. I frequently hear Christians complaining about how seemingly little they have, while not even considering the state of those 3 billion people who live each day on less that a cup of Starbucks coffee. I am as guilty of this as anyone. I have even heard of many Americans not really believing that there are people in true poverty and unhappy about being strapped for money when they have multiple cars, TVs, and other "essentials".

So, what does this all mean? Well, for one, I would encourage you to consider Christ in all things, and keep Him in mind and be in prayer with Him while thinking about this issue. Second, pray for those who are in true poverty. Third, be more grateful in your own position, and realize how good we have it. Fourth, consider ways to cut back your expenditures so that you can donate to churches or missionaries who are making a point to help out the poor. Fifth, volunteer your time to help with our own poor--while they may not live on two dollars, we have Americans who starve to death--go volunteer at a soup kitchen or a food pantry and help out others in need.

(Sobering reality: During the time it took to write this, nearly 3000 people died of starvation. Remember how Christ would have you treat these people.)