Most Sundays Mindy and I feel a
little awkward bringing our cameras and notebooks to church. There are times
when people look at us and whisper as we take photos. We usually go over and
explain about the blog; at times we've been told to put the camera away. This
day we weren't the only ones with cameras. A number of people were taking
selfies and group shots in front of church signs and the sanctuary. Also
popular photo opportunities were provided by the waterfall and food stations. Inside
the worship center an official photographer was snapping shots, over our heads a camera on a boom and other cameras were focused on the stage.
Obviously there were a lot of first
time visitors, even though Rick Warren wasn't there. Considering we didn't call
in advance any Sunday, we've done pretty well during "I Read the
Book" Month, visiting churches with writers we admire. All the previous
Sunday the authors have not only been at the church, but we've had a chance to
chat with them. Maybe if we'd called in advance we would have known which
Saddleback campus Warren was on and we could have gone there. But this Sunday
he was on the campus in Manila, so... (Saddleback has ten regional campuses
including the one we visited in Lake Forest, and four international campuses.
Beside the one in the Philippines; there are campuses in Buenos Aires, Hong
Kong and Berlin.)
Before the service started, a video
on the big screens celebrated the 35 years of Saddleback history along with a brief
introduction to the church's small groups (over 8000), ministries (such as food
pantry and legal aid) and ways to give (with an Android app). Another video set
of announcements during the service told about an upcoming conference on mental
health (you can find out about it here).
We noticed a woman in the front of
the sanctuary below the stage translating into American Sign Language, which is
available at some services. The congregation did have diversity in race,
apparent economic levels and age. What made this diversity a little more
surprising is that even on that campus there were other choices of styles of
worship; one with traditional hymns and choruses and another featuring gospel
and jazz.
Since Warren wasn't there, another
teaching pastor on the staff, Buddy Owens, spoke on "The Power to Live
Your New Life;" a basic message on living in the Spirit through a life of
prayer and studying Scripture.
He read from John 15:5 the words of
Jesus, "Apart from me you can do nothing." Owens then asked the
audience to say, "Nothing." This confused me momentarily as I considered
whether to say the word, "Nothing," or if I should say, you know,
nothing. But the congregation vocalized the word.
I did like his suggestion to kick a
shoe underneath the bed before going to sleep, so you need to start the day on
your knees, in prayer. (He also said, "The Bible says when you bow your
knees, you bow your heart." I'm not sure where the Bible says that. If you
know, a Scripture citation would be welcome in the comments section.)
He used a great illustration for the
filling of God's Spirit. He used a glass of water to represent our lives. He
then added to it: some vinegar to represent self-righteousness, cayenne pepper sauce
to represent anger, and a great many other things to represent sins that
pollute our lives. He opened a beer to pour it in. He said, "Hey, the
senior pastor's away. When the cat's away..." (You don't expect to see beer
in church, outside of, say, a Lutheran church.) He said he was going to drink from
the cup and some in the audience gasped. Then he poured pitcher after pitcher
of water into the cup until it was clean -- and then he did drink from it. It
was a great illustration and the audience really, um, drank it up.
He spoke about the need to be
continually filled with the Word of God. He said that if the only feeding of
the Word you get is from church on Sunday mornings, it's like only eating
breakfast on Sunday morning and expecting that to keep you nourished for the
week.
I appreciated him encouraging people
to read the Word, but I did have problems with the way he talked about reading
for depth rather than distance. He warned about trying to read through great
chunks of Scripture without understanding. Now there is some truth in that. But
he took it a little too far. He talked about a time he had agreed to read the
Bible in a year, reading the One Year Bible but it became the "Guilt Trip
Bible". He said when he got to the "begats" of Scripture, he got
bored.
I believe in reading small portions
of Scripture and meditating on them. I also think there is value in reading
long portions of Scripture. I have profited from the One Year Bible. Mindy said that she resented an assignment at Trinity to read through the New
Testament in a short time -- until it proved to be a great spiritual
experience.
Next year, Mindy and I are looking
to travel the whole United States, so we have a US map on the wall. When we are
actually traveling, that map won't do us much good. We'll need to be using GPS
and more detailed maps. But both kinds of maps have a function, just as reading
long stretches of Scripture and also mediating on a single verse can be
spiritually useful. Also wonderful for giving some perspective on God's work in
the world: the "begats," the passages of genealogies found in
Scripture. As Paul wrote, all Scripture is profitable (2 Timothy 3:16),
including the passages that quickly show God's faithfulness and purpose through
many generations.
I was curious if there would be any
mention the Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage, but nothing was said.
I guess you could say discussion of the Spirit giving us strength to influence
the world, to be "thermostats rather than thermometers" relates...but
I think I'm just reading into things there.
At the conclusion of the sermon, the
pastor said they'd take the offering, sing and he'd close the service in
prayer. But as the worship team sang, many people headed for the doors. I've
never really seen that before in a service, but I guess, Dodger fans.
We took the tram back to our car.
Kids scramble to get in the front of the tram so they can yell "Open
Sesame" (or maybe "open says me") to open the a gate in the
road. We had a bit of time to talk to members of the tram team before the
service. They took great joy in their service. Fortunately there are plenty of
services, so the many teams of servants on campus can also worship.
We were glad to have such an
opportunity as well. (And so do you; just go here. Of course,
the ice cream cart and the fitness course are not available online.)
Statistics:
Service Length: 1 hour 17
minutes
Sermon Length: 51 minutes
Visitor Treatment: several
booths available for information and help (and a gift!) but nobody was
available (they were helping others) after the service when we came by
Our Rough Count: 2,500
Probable Ushers' Count: I did
see an usher counting, but didn't have a chance to ask 2,600
Snacks: coffee, tea and ice
water at several locations around the campus. Ice cream treats, hamburgers and
other sandwiches available for sale from an adorable travel trailer
Musicians: Keyboards (male)
Electric bass (male)
Electric guitar (two males)
Drums (male)
Singers (two female, one male worship
leader who also played acoustic guitar)
Songs: "Do What You Want to"
"Great
are You, Lord"
musical
accompaniment to words of Psalm 95:1-6 projected on screen
"Great
God"
"Spirit
of the Living God"
Miles to place: 512 miles
Total California Miles: 9,756
miles
-- Dean
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