"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.