Friendship Presbyterian Church visit

Yesterday Barry and I attended a Presbyterian Church (http://fpcchicago.org) in Norwood Park, which leases space and meets in a Metra train station. Three Crosses shares so much of the same contextual questions as they do. Their place of worship is a challenge as far as their ability of having a neighborhood presence. Who would ever expect a congregation to be meeting in the train station? Yesterday, the worship service was outside – and it was a similar number of folk that one would see at Three Crosses on a given Sunday. Being outside provided a more informal setting – we were even asked to take off our shoes and “leave them behind” as Jesus asked the disciples to not take much with them when they went into the cities. (Yesterday’s lectionary text.) The service was interactive. During the worship service – we “traveled” between conversation partners within the congregation to talk about topics that the pastor set before us. After worship, Barry and I had a great conversation with the pastor. It was reassuring that this congregation was right where COTTC is on our journey of rethinking church. We share some of the same questions around worship, marketing/outreach (evangelism in old model church language) missions and financial viability. I asked my 8 core questions and have logged them into my traveling journal.