84 :: Moments of Hope Church

 

This morning, I attended Moments of Hope Church here in Charlotte. This place is the new church that David Chadwick has started up (more about him in a bit). This service was held around the basketball court of Providence Day School. When not at Providence Day, the church meets at at the Moments of Hope Farm about fifty minutes outside of Charlotte, right over the border of South Carolina as you head west. They meet at the farm about once a month.

Here are some pictures of worship at the Moments of Hope Church Farm (it looks pretty fun!):

I attended the Providence Day School location with MC. The rest of the family has (we think) seasonal allergies... but since there were many stuffed up noses and a few coughs, we thought it made sense for everyone else to stay home. And I don't like going to church when the whole family isn't going, so we didn't make Freedom House this morning. :(

A bit about the backstory of Moments of Hope Church (henceforth MoHC). 

David Chadwick is the Pastor of MoHC. For many years, David enjoys the status of "Christian famous" here in Charlotte. He took over the property of a ministry that experienced a particularly public decline in the late 1980s and turned it into Forest Hill Church. Forest Hill is an expansive and impressive campus.

David Chadwick played basketball at Chapel Hill in the 1970s for Dean Smith and he was good enough to play pro for a small while, and he is also a solid family man. He felt a calling by the Lord to go into ministry and followed that calling to the helm of Forest Hill. That church flourished for decades, but he left the head pastor role at Forest Hill a few years back. In short, he has and had all of the ingredients that make for a successful pastor in this many-churched city.

I've visited Forest Hill a few times over the years, including as part of my friends Bill and Bethany's daughter's christening ceremony (Forest Hill does not do infant baptisms). Chadwick is great fun to listen to and is clearly the kind of leader who builds a solid following. He also had a little morning snippet on the local AM radio station WBT. I used to hear it often.

Why he left Forest Hill is not clear to me, nor does it matter much. From what I have heard, he found out that some of the church's staff was not tithing and brought that concern to them. There was some fallout from that and he was eventually voted out of his position by the church's board.

I don't know the veracity of this narrative. But this was an important backstory to touch on before proceeding.

If you go back to my eighth church on this journey, it was to Forest Hill (post #92).That was July of last year.

That is some info on the background of David Chadwick, enough on it.

Of note, I didn't see Chadwick preach this morning.

***

With MC in tow, I drove from our home to Providence Day School. It was about five minutes away. When we got there, we met the women who were overseeing the child care, where we learned they only provide child care for children up to three. As a result, MC was with me the whole service. She was coloring during service.

The turnout was solid. In a place that seat a couple thousand when packed, this service had about three hundred worshipers.

The service started up when the kids were called to the court floor to dance as the music started to play. It was really nice. The larger crowd was somewhat staid during the music. About three of us had our hands in the air as we sang, most of the people were swaying almost imperceptibly to the music, which was really good. The songs were from a solo singer on an acoustic guitar.

The service easily transitioned into a children's sermon, which was about obeying God. MC felt uncharacteristically shy, so we stayed up in the stands and watched.

Then there were some announcements...

After that, the sermon finally started up. Discipleship Pastor John Kasay gave the sermon. 

It spoke directly into some themes that are happening in my life and my understanding of the Bible. Candidly, it was exactly what I have been thinking and learning about. 

The title of the sermon was "Is Your Popcorn Ready?" That title tied back to some story about a football game between Ole Miss and Alabama. I didn't understand how the game was relevant to the sermon, nor do I understand how the title linked to the themes that he expounded on during the sermon.

Despite those small points of confusion, the content of the sermon was excellent. It was about some very basic material, but all of it was really important stuff. That the sermon felt pretty foundational (basic) to me may indicate that I may be undergoing some growth in my knowledge, but I will take this kind of basic eight days a week. And the nature of the message likely met the crowd with exactly the kind of message that many of them needed to hear.

Pastor John started with an explanation of the Trinity, using a common picture that I have seen many times. Click on it and take some time with it.

Next, Pastor John elaborated on the way that we have two Advocates, one in Heaven and one within us. The one is Heaven is Yeshua. The one within us is the Holy Spirit. He explained that Yeshua made the promise in John 14:16 that after He departed, He was leaving His followers with the Advocate who would live with and in the Body of Christ until the final consummation of all things at the end.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:16-20)

In what I am currently learning about, this is the most important verse in the Bible. It inaugurated humanity's exposure to The Holy Spirit. As the facet of the Godhead that can live within us, the Holy Spirit is extremely important.  I believe that the Spirit can reveal truth to us when we read Scripture, the Spirit can fortify our obedience to God's Word, the Spirit can enable us to speak in miraculous languages (including heavenly languages), and the Spirit can even enable us to operate in the prophetic. The Holy Spirit also provides us the ability to live within our divine gifts and use them.

In short, the Holy Spirit is an essential part of a believer's existence and He is also the most frequently misunderstood and overlooked person in the Godhead. 

The presence of this Spirit is the promise of an entirely new humanity, in fact. Paul used  1 Corinthians 2:14 to illustrate the observation about how we are different than those who don't believe (referred to as "the natural person).

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)

This verse refers to an entirely new understanding of reality that can only be spiritually discerned, and it's an understanding that distinguishes us from the naturally-minded world, one that is an illumination from the Holy Spirit itself.

Pastor John clearly had my attention when we went there. As I glanced around, I may have been a bit more excited than most people in attendance. But this is such an important thing to grasp and live out. Without understanding the role of the Holy Spirit, we are candidly missing out on the depth and texture of what God has given us through His promises.

The Holy Spirit is essential!

Then Pastor John went to Acts 2, in which the Holy Spirit came into the world and gifted the apostles in miraculous ways. Here is that picture of those events that I love so much:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4)

Pastor John then linked these themes to the message that had been imparted to the young ones on the basketball court floor - the important of hearing and obeying God. This theme was tied back to the Holy Spirit in the sense that when you are living with the Holy Spirit within you, you also have a supernatural ability to live within the confines of God's Law. 

Through the Holy Spirit, we can be also be freed of all of our chains - be they addiction, anger, co-dependency, shame, deceit, lust, or anything else that can be redeemed from darkness to light in our lives. And when God lays claim to chains and breaks them, He will also return beauty for ashes. I've seen quite a bit of this lately. 

At the end, Pastor John walked around the basketball court with a baby in his arms. He explained to the crowd that this was the "impossible baby." He and his wife had struggled to have children years ago and three of their four children were therefore adopted. He then explained that the impossible baby was his grandchild. 

When Pastor John and his wife thought they would not be able to have a family, they are now proud grandparents.

Beauty for ashes, every single time!

At the end of the service, two men were invited to speak who work for a ministry that has been running a ministry to people in prison. This organization has been going for sixty years and they spoke compellingly about the importance of helping those who are living in that most difficult of circumstances. MoHC gave them $25K and then their leaders laid hands on the men during prayer.

Then we had a benediction and it was all over. Mariel Charlotte and I emerged out into the beautifully chilly weather that has set upon North Carolina and headed home.

I can definitely say that David Chadwick can definitely create a successful church. This will be one, I have no doubt. 

In fact, it already is. 

We enjoyed our time with MoHC.

Great job, yet again, David Chadwick. 

83 :: Saint Mary's Syro-Malabar Church

Tonight I attended Mass at Saint Mary's Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Charlotte. As this journey has continued, I have decided that I would de-emphasize attending Catholic Mass, as I am not Catholic and therefore don't have the knowledge to "do" Mass. But when I discovered that there was a Catholic congregation in Charlotte made up of people from southern India, specifically the state of Kerala, I knew had to go. The service was almost exclusively in the language of Malayalam (mah-LEE-ah-lum), the language of Keralites. Since it was Thursday night, it was also sparsely attended.

Before I describe what it was like to experience this Mass, there is a good bit of ground to cover. The state of Kerala has an interesting history in the Body of Christ. Additionally, I have been to Kerala several times. It is a special place to me and it is very beautiful.

Much of the state of Kerala is made up of marshy waterways, officially named The Backwaters. You can take multi-day boat tours on The Backwaters and see lush jungle, elephants washing themselves, and small villages where people are living in deep integration with the land around them. The beaches are great in Kerala, as well. In addition, there are highlands in which tea and spices are grown. In short, it is a beautiful state. Throughout India, people call Kerala "God's Own Country."

Kerala is on the Southwest Coast of India and was known as the Malabar Coast for centuries. It is about 20% Christian, with adherents spread across various denominations, many of whom are in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism. There are also Protestants, evangelicals, Pentecostals and all the Christian segments that one would find everywhere in the modern day. With that said, most of Kerala's Christians are aligned with the ancient lineages of our faith. It is the most Christian state in south India. Kerala also has the highest literacy rate in all of India.

When I was visiting Kerala in 2008, I walked around the city of Thiruvananthapuram on a Sunday morning, looking for a place to worship. I found an Assyrian Orthodox Church where I attended liturgy for hours. Men and women were standing on different sides of the church, all of them barefoot. The sermon was blaring over a series of loudspeakers, including out onto the crowded street where people of other religions were promenading around, forced to hear the gospel in their native language. All acts of worship in India can be described as a provocative reminder that a particular religion has a presence in the land - Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Sikhism and, yes... Christianity. 

It was really great and a memory I hold very dearly.

Here is a chart that shows these alignments and evolutions of Christianity in Kerala. You'll notice that all of it has a great deal to do with a man named Thomas.

Thomas is one of the twelve apostles who is more colloquially known as Doubting Thomas. He was the apostle that met the resurrected Yeshua in the upper room and wouldn't believe what he was seeing until he stuck his fingers in Yeshua's hands and pierced side.

Here is how the Bible accounts for these events:

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:24-29)

Thomas is the representation of our doubt, which all people who come to faith can expect to struggle with from time to time.

When Paul went West to spread the gospel in modern day Turkey, Greece and Italy, Thomas went East to India. He landed in Kerala approximately nineteen years after the events of the Cross, and planted seeds for the growth of the gospel which continue until today. He was martyred in Tamil Nadu, the state next to Kerala. His grave is in the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. I have been to Thomas' grave many times, it is a fascinating place. There are always people huddled around it in a way that strikes me as odd, since I was raised a Protestant. I have watched many people pray to Thomas' grave, as if it emanates some sort of spiritual power. 

Here are some pictures of that gravesite, as well as the diorama of his martyrdom that is on display at that same church in Chennai:

An Indian state that I have visited often, that is very dear to me.

An ancient strain of Christianity that settled on the Malabar Coast in the first century.

Doubting Thomas' evangelism and martyrdom in southern India.

With all of this as background, I was immediately intrigued when I found out that I could attend Mass at Charlotte's only Keralite Catholic Church 

Here are some pictures of the experience:

You can see that the women had their heads covered, a frequent facet of worship in India. The church also had all of the normal adornments of a Catholic church, with Yeshua and Mary occupying a spot of apparent equal prominence on the front sides. The Stations of the Cross, which are in every Catholic church, adorned the walls of the sanctuary. There was also a confessional in the back of the church. In many ways, it felt familiar, since I have attended multiple Mass services on this journey. Yet it was also clearly very Indian.

Again, I don't know what one does during a Mass, so I just sat in the back and watched all of it. I prayed multiple times for the people as I sat there.

A man walked up to me during the Mass and kindly passed me the prayer book that they were using, which had pages in both English and Malayalam.

With a couple of exceptions when the altar boy at the front of the church read the Bible in English, the entire Mass was in Malayalam. When I first encountered this language in 2006 while visiting Kerala, I was struck by how Malayalam sounds like an explosion of phonemes. It always hits my ear like a language that is extremely fast in how it is spoken. 

I don't understand Malayalam, but I have a unique ability with languages, so I listened closely and caught a couple things. First, Malayalam has the word "bhakti," which is a Hindi/Sanskrit word that means spiritual devotion. Additionally, they use the English language names of the books of the Bible.

Here are some videos of the mass in Malayalam:

Eventually, the altar boy rang the bells which signify the Holy spirit descending onto the eucharist, then the faithful lined up to take Holy Communion. I am not permitted to take communion in a Catholic church, so I watched.

Then it was over. The people were very warm to me and accommodated me with great graciousness.

For me, it was interesting experience to see Keralites worship in this very Southern and American city that is becoming more diverse in its representation of the Body of Christ. As we must always remember, we are all one in Christ.

Thanks to Saint Mary's Syro-Malabar Church for a fascinating evening.

82 :: First Christian Church

This morning, we worshiped at First Christian Church on East Boulevard in Charlotte. Being named the First Christian Church in Charlotte could be seen as a big deal, since our city is filled with such a large number churches. This particular church is part of a denomination named the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We learned about this name by speaking to one of the congregants, who explained to us that they describe themselves as "the parentheses church." As such, the denominational name gave this church first dibs on the appellation First Christian Church, which was founded in Charlotte in 1955.

This church also is the location of the Dilworth Soup Kitchen that feeds people twice weekly. In the fully-gentrified Dilworth section of Charlotte, where First Christian is located, you can definitively distinguish the people who have come to be fed at the soup kitchen from those who live in Dilworth. It's a powerful and meaningful ministry that this church has had for many years.

Before proceeding, let's review some details about the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination. 

Here is the link to the denomination's website [link]. 

Based on my research, it is likely that this denomination will disappear in a few years. I have not said this about other churches we have visited, but I do believe it will be the case with this denomination. In 2008, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had about 680,000 baptized members. By 2018, the number was about 380,000, a nearly 50% decline in a single decade. Even with 380,000 members in 2018, only 125,000 people attended a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) service in the US and Canada on an average Sunday. 

Based on what we saw, countermeasures against Covid-19 will likely drive the denomination into an even deeper numerical decline.

Of note, this is the denomination that Beth's mother grew up in, so there is a special connection for us. Barbara Harris, my mother-in-law, grew up First Christian Church of Williamston, North Carolina. As such, this First Christian Church in Charlotte has occupied a place of curiosity in Beth's mind for years.

When we arrived, we were first greeted by a sign with Micah 6:8 on it. The sign was also adorned with a rainbow, likely indicating that it is an open and affirming congregation for LGBT people. In addition to this banner, there was a banner for the aforementioned Dilworth Soup Kitchen.

Micah 6:8 goes as such:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

On the banner, this verse was reduced to three sentences, with no explicit reference to God.

Do Justice.
Love Kindness.
Walk Humbly.

As we entered the church, we were greeted by two congregants who were standing with the Reverend Jolin Wilks McElroy. She agreed to touch elbows with us and the church promptly provided us with masks. The greeting was warm, and we were reminded of the differences between congregations when it comes to Covid-19 countermeasures. We had just attended church at Freedom House where the worship service was... let's just say it was definitively less oriented toward Covid-19 precautions. 

We sat in the sanctuary waiting for the service to start, which was both streaming and in-person. The number of people in physical attendance was around twenty. Everyone was masked, and every other pew was taped off. In the pews that were open, there were plastic swimming pool noodles that ensured everyone sat far apart from each other.

We went through the entire forty-five minute service and reflected afterwards that there were multiple dimensions of the worship that were pleasing to us. 

First, it was quiet. So little in the world today is characterized by quietness, that was really nice. 

Secondly, the piano music was enjoyable. We heard familiar hymns that are disappearing out of the collective Protestant ethos of America. They were comforting.

Finally, we took communion and they also sang the doxology at the end of the service. This attention to liturgical practice felt very familiar.

In short, the service felt very nostalgic to us. First Christian Church is very similar to the kind of churches that we both grew up in. 

The congregation clearly skews older. The average attendee was probably seventy-five years old. Because of this demographic reality, there is an abundance of caution related to Covid-19. If it can be described as an overabundance of caution is subject to debate and personal perspective, but I don't believe that there will ever be a service in the future of First Christian Church without masks or social distancing.

Here are some pictures and videos of our visit:

As you can see, most of the music was not in-person, it was pre-recorded. Additionally, the congregation was asked to not sing along during the hymns that were shown from the recordings on the front screens. We also did not sing the doxology. Again, Covid-19 concerns drove that decision.

I believe the lack of singing mapped back to fear of airborne particles. From behind masks.  While socially distanced. In a church where most people were very likely already double vaccinated. 

The youngest congregant was hunched over for the duration of the service. I looked at him often, thinking he might have been ill. I found out that he was the Reverend Jolin's son and that he was watching a show on his phone the entire duration of the service.

How was the sermon? 

Rev. Jolin is a very warm, gentle and kind person. Her sermon was about feeling distance with God. She described that God can feel very distant at times and that the perceived gap between God and humanity can make us feel like we are alone. It can even feel like God is silent. 

The bulletin included a message from someone in Germany who was killed in the Holocaust and scrawled a few sentences on the wall. The quote was used to illustrate that a perceived silence of God does not imply that He is not seeing and providing for us at that time.

She mentioned that Jesus is the way that God closes the gap between Divinity and humanity. Jesus is what is needed to make us feel closer to God.

A good message. As always, this was a message that could have absolutely been exactly what someone in attendance needed to hear and Beth coached me to remember this.

The sermon hit a particular note of interest with us this morning in a theological sense. We are in a Life Group at Freedom House that is a study of the Holy Spirit. I also just finished a month of study with the CS Lewis Institute on the Holy Spirit. Because of this, we were in a mind to think about the sermon with a bit more context.

It was of note to me that in describing God as sometimes silent and distant, that Rev. Jolin brought Jesus up as the part of the Godhead that closes that spiritual proximity gap. 

This is very true. There may also be something additional to consider.

Here's what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit in John 14:15-17:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (underline mine)

This was Jesus's declaration that after His death, resurrection and ascension, we would be left with direct access to another aspect of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the third person of the triune Godhead that can be with us (Luke 11:13), advocate for us (1 John 2:1), dwell inside of us (1 Corinthians 3:16), as well as free us from slavery and ensure our adoption as children of God (Romans 8:15).

The Holy Spirit did not come up during the sermon, but it occurs to me as an essential part of what we need to experience when we feel that God may feel silent or distant. As can be the case, the Holy Spirit is the aspect of the Godhead that is so very often overlooked and not discussed, but is absolutely essential to understand and experience a fully Christian walk. 

After we left, we discussed the experience. It gave us a great deal of food for thought.

I don't know where this church will be in ten or twenty years, but it feels possible that it may not exist at all. Only God knows for sure.

It was an interesting and informative visit to First Christian Church today. We thank First Christian Church for their warm hospitality.