"Learning to Grieve with Hope" - Community Church of Issaquah - Issaquah, WA - October 20th, 2013

     Here is to those surprises when you find gems that line up with your schedule (whatever those gems are). The Community Church of Issaquah has a 1:30pm service that matched up perfectly with my schedule for a visit before later things in the day.

     Right now they are having services in the building that hosts the Issaquah Christian Church while their new building gets built. The main difference between the groups that I can gather from their websites is the Issaquah Christian Church is an Evangelical Church verses The Community Church of Issaquah who are Baptists.

    The first thing I noticed was the congregation, the congregation is old and small. There is a closeness among them too and everybody knows everyone. They are also kind to strangers as I experienced after the sermon.

   The Pastor looked the role of the Baptist preacher. He had a grey suit, tie, glasses and grey hair. He also had a lot of anecdotes during the course of the worship service. The service began talking about their missionary work in Myanmar and the volunteer doctors and nurses their (as well as their expansion) and after there was a prayer for all those sick, in surgery, going through cancer and a prayer for the country to elect virtuous leaders or for people to lead with virtue. Next were two songs praising God before the sermon began.

       The service was about "Learning to grieve with hope." The readings also had to do with the sermon as well were about Paul talking to his followers about how they had hope from Jesus rising from the Dead that they would rise again with him. The Pastor than talked about grief relating stories about what it was like to lose his grandparents and parents and his relationships to all of them.

     He then talked about how people choose not to believe. The reasons he believed people don't believe is from Intellectual barriers (he said Spiritual disability - which was the one thing I really took issue with during the sermon, since those intellectual issues are in fact valid, just look at all the questions asked throughout time not just in regards to Christianity but any religion and the proofs that are honestly needed, my appreciation for the philosophers grew after this sermon), or people who have been hurt by their community (which if a community does hurt a person they should leave, no one should stay in an abusive relationship with another person or community).

      Afterwords was the closing hymn and I briefly talked the pastor and one of the Bible Teachers, they both introduced themselves to me. I think I will drop by the Bible study sometime during the course of the blog. They are kind community and I'm curious to learn more about what they are all about and their intpretations and experiences.There were a few liberal bumper stickers (one said Obamacare in a positive light), which was something I did not expect. It just goes to show that there truly are such a wide range of political thoughts within any congregation and within the different congregations inside a denomination.

Abide Baptist Church - June 26th, 2011 - Issaquah, WA

     This is my first faith visit since my friend's funeral and burial...and in it I experienced the best and worst of what religion can bring. Abide Baptist Church is a tiny church near the freeway entrance. It's been around a year less then I've been in Issaquah and follows the Baptist tradition of respect of choice (to believe or not to believe) and separation of Church and State (state cannot enforce on faiths and in theory vise versa). Both of which I think are admirable ideals of the faith.

      The best I experienced was the sense of community with strangers and the reflective nature of the service. It reminded me a little of a Mormon service in that their were hymns but no Christian Rock or Choir music...it was the pastor's wife and the piano with hymns that I've heard play in movies that take place in the south. While I was there it felt like the people I love where there with me, and I felt peace.

     The worst I experienced was prejudice towards people (males specifically) who go outside their supposed masculine roles. The first was the pastor talking about how his school's swim team had become sissy and given people breaks which he never got...and the other was when I talked to his Dad who was ashamed to drive a light colored car during the day when he was driving across the United States.

    The other part was the Theory of Evolution and theology. I understand now why they must have felt threatened...if the Bible is the literal Word of God then Genesis is a fact not a metaphorical story...then the Big Bang, evolution and other theories that contradict these "facts" must be wrong. The pastor it's "Just a theory," disregarding what in science that actually means. Theories only exist due to ample evidence and empirically tested claims. In evolution a large part of this is in the fossil record and our own genetic code in which we can trace our ancestry.

   The misunderstanding science was completed with the "Atheist Checklist," which was a tract that the pastor's father gave to me. The tract is written by Ray Comfort who argues that because a banana is color coded for when it's ripe, spoiled or developing, and can be held in the human hand that clearly it was designed by God. It is like a Coco-Cola can created by humans Ray implies. What he misses though is that bananas were domesticated and evolved to be the way they are by humans. Wild bananas look nothing like the ones Comfort describes. Just to touch on the problems with his hypothesis.That's why they are shaped the way are and edible. The checklist was insulting to science. It ended also with the Ten Commandments and a call to Jesus showing that again, it was apologist work for religion, not science.

    The sermon was about when Jesus told his apostles that he would die and rise again on the third day. The pastor talked about how Jesus made things easy for us, just to accept him into our lives, but we like things difficult. He used the example people who chose not to buy a mix where you just add water, but bought the cooking mix when it required water and an egg. He also brought up faith verse works and that the Bible says it's faith alone but the surveys he said showed most denominations thought good works would get one into heaven. This is an issue for another post the faith verse works ideal in regards to virtue, but I will eventually get to it. Since it deals with the claims of a lot of faiths and human nature.
     
      The service ended with a song we all sang together called "Lean on Jesus" and a final call to Jesus for someone to repent and confess along with the final prayer.

     I'm planning on talking to the pastor about these things at some point. For to bash someone because they are a masculine female or a feminine male isn't virtuous, loving or just, and though Christianity is built on faith, in it's best form, it's about treating others with respect, dignity and love.

     It's good to be visiting faith communities again...and meeting the people who believers of the different faiths and sects within the faiths. It's in these visits and conversations I think come to know God, humanity and myself better in the constant path of learning and growth.