Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Jubilee Church

Happy Sunday!  First off I want to make clear that I am not discriminating against any form of church, judging the church, or saying one church is better than the other.  This blog is simply to inform those of you who are interested in my church hunting how today went.
Some of you know that a month or two back I found a church online called the Jubilee church.  I corresponded via email for awhile to get to know the background and the organization of the church, the dress, the classes, things like that.  After corresponding for a few days I for some reason lost total interest.  I didn't even have a desire to email the lady back.  They seemed to have everything I was looking for..... a mommy and me class, they work with the orphanage, and they feed the hungry in the subways from time to time among other things.  However the feeling of wanting to visit this church after a few emails had died suddenly.  I wasn't too worried though as Collin had found a church in Gangnam that he said seemed just like the church we came from in Colorado.  Rocky Mountain Calvary.  RMC was a wonderful and huge church that we attended for the few years we were stationed in Colorado.  As we got up this morning Collin tracked down that exact subway route and said, "It looks like the Jubilee Church you were talking about."  Ummmmmmm not exactly what I was thinking.    I thought I told him I had no plans of going to that church... hummmmm oh well here we go! 3 or 4 subway stops a transfer and another 3 or 4 subway stops and we arrived in Gangnam.  Once off the subway we had about a 7-10 minute walk, in dress sandals I might add..... however they are the MOST comfortable dress sandals so I figured we would be ok.  I being the we, cause lets face it.  If momma's feet were hurting after this walk daddy was going to know about it, but fortunately for Collin and my feet they are pretty comfortable!
Once we got there we found a little cafe on the top floor and got some rice crispy treats for breakfast and I got a mint Iced Mocha!  It's actually starting to cool off here but with Audrey strapped to me the whole way I was burning up! 15 minutes later we were down in the sanctuary.  Not as big as the 1000's I was used to with RMC but bigger than what I was used to with The City in Geneva Ohio.  We sat in the back in case Audrey wanted to get a little loud.  We certainly didn't want to make a first bad impression, but I didn't want to send Audrey to the Nursery when I didn't know anything about this church except that they were from New Jersey when they started 7 years ago.
Every last Sunday of the month is family Sunday so the kids join for the first part of praise and worship and we sing kid songs.  It cracked me up as even the adults where doing the kids hand motions that they have learned in class I assume.  After the 2 songs the kids were dismissed.  and I realized that all the babies that I saw were taken to a room in the back of the sanctuary by 1 parent.  It was considered a crying room and was were the babies 2 and under (2 and up had class rooms) could play.  This also means 1 parent had to stay in the room at all times.  Audrey kept starring at all the kids and smiling and waving so after we sang our last song I told Collin that I wanted to let her go play cause she just keeps starring and waving at all the kids.  She was so cute getting all happy whenever one child waved back or even a parent for that matter.  She would clap or jump in my lap with a smile!  So as I was going to take her back, Collin volunteered to go instead.  Needless to say it was very distracting throughout the entire service cause every once in awhile I would here a shriek or a cry coming out of that room and I wanted to keep an eye on my baby girl.  Audrey had a blast with the other kids!
Ok back to the church part and less of the play part.  It seemed very disorganized to me but Collin assured me after church that, that is just how Korean's do things and it makes sense to them.  We had Praise and Worship, announcements, prayer, more random announcements and then we got into the sermon.  Now up to this point I was very distracted.  After Praise and Worship there so many announcements that I practically forgot where I was.  Not too mention I was in a new church and essentially by myself since Collin had Audrey in the "Crying Room."  Another thing that didn't exactly tick with me was there was a LOT of reading and not a lot of teaching.  The Title of the sermon was "How to secure a future"  by the time the sermon was over I forgot all about the "How to secure a future" topic.  In fact I could tell you very little about what the message was.  I certainly didn't get securing my future out of it.
It was very much like a Methodist Church, with raising of the hands and modern Christian music.  We started with service with the Apostle Creed, did a lot of silent prayer before every prayer, and did a lot and I mean a lot of out loud group reading and when everyone is reading from different versions of the Bible it can get a little jumbled.  Oh yeah and because of the children's songs we only sang 1 other song and that was The Stand by Hillsong (which is a great song) but then we ended the church with the same song which I thought once again was another weird thing about this church.  They brought forth all the new decans in the Church which was cool I guess just have never seen such a thing before.  During the sermon everywhere I looked everyone was on their phones, mainly because they used phones instead of Bibles and, the 4 that were directly around me where FB'ing the whole time.  After the Sermon they did the offering and another series of announcements.  Again things were very strange to me and not exactly to my liking, but Collin was pleased with it and since it was an assistant pastor today and the senior pastor will be back next week we may go ahead and give it 1 more try..... or we may move on to another church.

After church we took the subway to Itewan and stopped at Taco Bell for lunch, by the way, in Korea they have Nacho Cheese Chicken Chalupa's and in the states they no longer do unless you special order them and pay extra.  Also a funny thing is that the #1 was a chalupa meal but you could only get it in baja.  You couldn't do a substitution for the Nacho Cheese.  In Korea it is Not an option you get whats on the menu and that is it!  After Taco Bell I told Collin I preferred to walk home.  After all it was a nice fall day and walking is better for you anyway and cheaper than the subway!  Once you get out of Itewan (the main city portion) and you get between there and the Yongsan part of Seoul it turns into a beautiful walk.  A path lined with bushes and trees on one side and benches and trees on the other.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful walk but not going to lie, after about 2 miles or more with Audrey strapped to me almost the whole way and dress sandals, as comfortable as they may be my feet were hurting.  I was happy when I finally saw the last street to cross until I was home, although Collin misjudged the "go" like for walking and we had to run a cross the last few lanes.  We made it and the rest of the day was a lazy one!

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