I want to preface this review by saying that I tend to find it difficult to feel at home in churches, so take this review in this context.
This church seems to have a lot of really wonderful, sweet, caring people in it. The service, however, left me feeling bored, disconnected, and somewhat defensive. First I want to highlight the good things: this church had beautiful piano playing, and was LGBT friendly. The location is great too. There was some nice singing, including in harmony. The hymns were mostly regular 4-part hymns, a few sung in unison, nothing "contemporary", which I appreciated greatly as I like the traditional worship style.
I found myself frequently bored or unable to concentrate during the service here...some of the talking struck me as long-winded without necessarily being passionate. I think this church would do well to move a bit in the direction of a Quaker meeting, with more silence and less talking, and also a bit in the direction of a Baptist prayer time, with more enthusiasm and passion. I want the same amount of content communicated with greater quality in less time, and then I want more space to reflect and contemplate on what has been communicated. This is just my own personal preference, but I suspect there are numerous others who feel this way too.
There was just too much time in the service and afterwards of listening to people talk, and not in the most concise ways. The service starts with sharing joys and concerns, and there is a prayer circle at the end (great idea!). But then, at the coffee hour, there are more long-winded announcements. It just got to be a bit much for me...I like to be fully present during a worship service, and especially when I'm visiting a new church, and it was a real challenge for me to be fully present and actively concentrating in the church.
The other thing that made me extremely uncomfortable was what I perceived as a judgmental or self-righteous attitude that surfaced a few times. I'm sure that not everyone in the congregation acts, thinks, or talks this way, and I'm sure that the people speaking in these ways are still good people, but there were some remarks that would have made someone with even a more moderately-conservative political viewpoint EXTREMELY uncomfortable. Even though I wasn't targetted by these remarks, they also made me uncomfortable.
I do not consider myself a liberal, but I do hold progressive views on LGBT issues, abortion, and reproductive rights, and, like this congregation, I do not believe one religion has a monopoly on the truth. But I respect people who hold different views, particularly on the issue of abortion, and I do not think it is truthful or constructive to make analogies or use incendiary political speech like "wanting to control women's bodies" or implying that people hate women or are bad people because they hold differing views on abortion. This comment rubbed me the wrong way, much in the same way it rubs me the wrong way when people make anti-gay statements in more conservative churches. I also think that, if people are really interested in promoting their own viewpoints, and persuading others that these viewpoints are more constructive or somehow better, they would do well to be more respectful of the people who hold differing viewpoints.
While this wasn't the worst church in this respect, there was a lot too much of the "pat-yourself-on-the-back liberal" mentality, the "Thank God we're so open minded." sort of thing for me to feel truly comfortable here. I struggle with these sorts of things myself and I want to find a congregation that is going to help ME to grow and challenge ME on these issues so that I don't fall into doing this myself. It's hard for me to come into a congregation and see these things going on with older people and people who have been members of the congregation for a long time--this sends the message to me that the community is more stagnant and less self-reflective than I'd like it to be. I want a church that is going to help me grow by setting a positive example for me.
Lastly, there weren't as many young people in this church as I had hoped to find. I felt hopeful when I found a progressive church right next to Penn and near other universities, in a neighborhood with an overwhelmingly young demographic...yet this church seems to have the standard age profile of any church in the U.S...mostly older, fewer people in the 18-35 age range. This also saddened me, I was hoping to find a church that more accurately reflected the demographics of the immediately-surrounding neighborhood.
I hope I can still engage / participate with this church in some positive way, even if I don't attend their services often. I also think it would be great if this church could sort out some of these issues. read more