Elim Community Church (St. Paul’s)
10 October, 10:45am
Elim Community Church is a Pentecostal church meeting in the former St. Paul’s Anglican Church. They have done some interesting work to the choir area of the building. They’ve added a glass front so that the stained glass is still visible but inaccessible, and they’ve built a stage in front of it. They have chairs instead of pews.
The band consisted of a worship leader with guitar, bass player, keyboardist, drummer and a male and female vocalist, both of whom sang melody the entire time. The worship leader was a decent guitarist and this was the first place I’ve been to where the worship leader actually engaged with the congregation. However, he was superseded by the pastor, who did all of the talking for the worship leader, and at one point grabbed a microphone and started singing with them. There was a screen with the lyrics—yellow on a blue background. The screen was used for nothing else.
There were about 100 people at the service, but the pastor mentioned that quite a few were out sick. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a charismatic setting, and I’ve never been to a church service, although it was very similar to the chapels I attended in Jr. High. They opened with a song, then had a greeting, in which the pastor said that we should feel free to sit or stand or raise hands or whatever we wanted to do, and we should “forget about the person next to us and just focus on God,” a phrase I’ve grown to dislike as corporate worship is corporate, not private. There was a lot of “We praise You, Jesus; Hallelujah,” etc, by the pastor while he was talking. We sang for at least 30 minutes straight, with no stopping. I’d forgotten what it was like to stand that long. After this two new members were commissioned into service at the church. The elders came up and one of them prayed. Then a new staff member was commissioned. Then we took Communion—the band played and sang while the ushers went forward, took the elements themselves, then passed them around the room. They actually handed the trays to each person. We each took them on our own time, but had to take the cup immediately and put it back in the tray. Somewhere in here was a prayer time in which everyone was praying aloud at the same time. There was a lot of this during the music as well. After that was an invitation to come to the microphone and share what God had done. There was no speaking in tongues or anything, but it was very free. However, the pastor kept it to just a few minutes. There was an offering at some point—the first church I’ve been to with one. Next, another man (not sure if he was a pastor or layman) threw candy to those with birthdays and anniversaries in the past week, and to the two of us who were first time visitors. He threw it to me and said, “I don’t know your name.” After the service, a number of people remembered my name, which was pretty cool. After this came some announcements and then the sermon. I think another staff member or layman gave the sermon, which pretty good. After this, the pastor came up and invited the band to play as anyone who wanted prayer could come forward. They anointed them with oil and prayed for them.
Though I left Elim realizing that I don’t fit into a Pentecostal church, either theologically (they do believe that the Baptism of the Spirit comes subsequent to salvation, that it’s something we should seek and manifests itself in spiritual gifts) or in worship style, I did leave with an appreciation for the people’s sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. The people were very friendly and I felt quite welcomed. The preaching was sound and I could tell from the sermon that the church does not teach any kind of prosperity gospel, although I have a hunch that this is an uniquely American theology. The charismatic nature of the church is more subdued (possibly an English trait?) then in many American churches. There were people raising hands and praying freely, but it wasn’t overwhelming.
One other thing—there was a boy (a teenager, I think; I couldn’t see him very well) there with his mother, who threw a fit audibly during the music and testimony time. We could hear him screaming, “I don’t want to worship” and other things in a horrible-sounding voice at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the room acted as if he wasn’t there. I wondered if this was a frequent occurrence. I wondered what kind of emotional/psychiatric problems he had, but honestly, I also wondered if there weren’t something demonic going on. It was very strange.
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