Church visit # 9 second visit to CAN

I attended worship at CAN( church of All Nations) for a second time in the last two weeks for two reasons: my first visit was on Labor Day weekend which as I mentioned in that post is not the best time to visit a church, and my friend Moses who attended Triennium with us was to do his Triennium testimony this Sunday.

So I get to CAN and see my friend Joo, or Pastor Joo as the youth call him. We talk and he tells me about the recent Presbytery experience and laughs as I tell him no one was at CAN the last time I was there. Acutaly Joo was in SD, Thao ( the other adult from CAN that attended Triennium ) was in Nashville, Est, one of the youth was in Atlanta and Easter, Moses's sister was not at worship the last time I was there.

Thao who is church's adminstrative assistant sees me and and says "Moses is not speaking for a while, it got pushed back again due to introducing the new interns this Sunday" Argh, I thought since it was in the bulletin it would happen as scheduled, guess I should have checked with Moses or Thao earlier in the week.

Worship began, no praise music this week as the guitar player had a baby early in the week. The first hymn was a Charles Wesly hymn ( a friend of mine in seminary loved when we sang one of the Wesly brothers hymns). we sang out of the non-presbyterian hymnal I was not familar with.

Passing of the peace was once again everyone meeting in the center aisle, I joined in this time as I sought out some of the youth I knew. the sermon seemed early in the serivce, maybe not as much litrgy, announcements later in the service read by the worship leader ( at CAN the worship leader commits to a whole month) and no children's message( the kids have their own worship service downstairs, not sure how I feel about this,I will do a post on children in worship sometime).

Note, I have not commented on Sermons much in some of my previous posts, plan to change that with church visit posts from now on. The Pastor preaching was the Immigrant ministry Pastor - David Mwihia ( who is from an African country, I don't remember at the moment). His sermon was titled "My Grace is Sufficient" it was an ok sermon, he didn't catch my attention and keep it. Also not sure if I agreeded with the way he defined Grace and the examples he used of what he thought was Grace. He finished with a good story though, the just of it was a man meets Peter at the gates to heaven and told he needs 100 points to get into heaven. The man goes through how he lived his life and Peter awards him 10 points, he talks about his church life and faith and is given another 1/2 a point. He says the only way I could get into heaven at this point is by the grace of God, and Peter says exactly, through God's grace you get the remaining points to get into heaven.

Once again there is no music during the offering but this week they introduced the three new interns. In reflecting on this music is one way of giving an offering to God ( in addition to the money collected by passing the plates) and giving testimonay or in this case being an intern is another form of offering. Pastor Jin, announced that Dana and Joo were granted another year on their internships by the session earlier in the week. Dana works with young adults and will be adding intergenerational ministry, Joo works with the youth. Then the three new interns were introduced, Paul will be working with campus ministry focusing on Northwestern and Bethel students. John will be a generalist, and Herb will be observing the congregation and at the end of the year giving a report on how the racial harmony of the congregation is. The interesting thing is Paul and John both graduated from Seminary and have their MDIV's and Herb has a PHD and is a professor at United Seminary and Hamline? Pastor Jin said between the three of them they make $200 a week, he made a mention about not spending a lot of money on staff salaries, so the need for interns and congregation members need to do their part for programs to succed.

One thing that Pastor Jin mentioned was a delima the session is having in concerns about future growth of CAN, he said with the way things are going ( very optimistic, from my viewpoint) that CAN could become a mega church and no one wants that so how do you prevent this from happening but yet not be like once the church has reached 400 ( odd number example he picked, does 400 make a church mega church like?) do we close the doors, no but the hope is in a few years one of the interns who help start another CAN like church in another part of the metro with CAN members that live in that area ( I would be curious to know how large of a geographic area CAN draws from).

While I am not sure having five interns is the way to do staffing at a church, some of the basic philosphy of Pastor Jin and CAN appeals to me and again could be a church that I eventually join.

Following the offering they sang the doxology ( something I missed last Sunday at St. Luke) and I was delighted to sing Father, song, holy ghost for the last line. I have a feeling as anti gender netural lanuage and not a fan of Sophia ( or the notion of a female wisdon deity, stuggled with the wisdom lit class in seminary) that God has a sense of doing things such that I may in the future be motivated to reconsider these positions( whoa, guess that is a soapbox for another post).

back to the service, they did not have a prayer of dedication after the offering was brought up front during the doxology. starting to think about what part of the "traditional presbyterian reformed worship service" is really important and which things can be modified or not done and for it still to be a Presbyterian worship serivce? My Presbyterian worship/polity instructor and the by the book, Book of Order (BOO) Presbyterians might say you don't have much flexiblity with these parts based on the book of worship section of the BOO, but I am starting to be more open in my thinking about this, as a reformed tradition aren't we always reforming?

In the welcome they had the visitors stand and introduce themselves ( a number of Northwestern students this week) think this fits with the small family church, transpencey the people of CAN seem to want, these ideas have been mentioned a few times when I have been at CAN. I applaud them for being open with this, I have been in churches that want to be a small family church but then claim they want to grow and be a program church, you can't be both, think being a program church is not a mega church, but some fear it as it is.

The announcements are found in the "our Life together" section of the bulletin but also read by the worship leader ( which is an efficent way of doing them) During the announcments they put a picture of the new baby ( mentioned earlier) on the screen, nice use of the screen in worship. Think use of technology will be another future post. Following worship I talked to Paul ( the new campus ministry intern) who I had met previously as he is Thao's boyfriend. He commented on how well he things CAN is structured, but he said there is also a unique fluidly to it, I mentioned that I had come twice to hear Moses and both times it was rescheduled, his comment was, thats the fluidity. Talking with Pastor Jin his comment was this rescheduling is a way to keep me coming back. I like Pastor Jin's quick wit.

So I probably will be back at CAN in another two weeks if Moses's testimony does not get rescheduled again ( I will check during the week this time). I like many things about CAN, but have not felt welcomed very much as a visitor either time, this could be partly because I am less than outgoing myself, and have not identifed myself as a visitor during the welcome time yet( also there are not pad's to sign in on. Writing the statements where I wonder if I am partly to blame for not feeling welcomed was once described by a Lutheran friend as what they call Lutheran guilt, I think it is part of the Minnesota way of being humble.