Ir visits the Vineyard Church of Oak Park, Illinois

Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 05.30.2006 /

On Saturday evening I went to the ‘deep’ worship service at Vineyard Church of Oak Park.

My cousin-in-law and her husband were visiting from out of town and had asked about going to church with me. In general I’ve been having a break from church but I liked the idea of visiting a church with them. I thought they’d like the Vineyard church near me, which I’d never been to but had heard good things about from friends. They looked at the website and suggested the Saturday night service because they liked the sound of it. This is a special monthly service - the church website says:

Saturday nights - A new season of refreshing - Join with the staff and worship teams to pursue God together on the last Saturday night of every month, for a “Holy Spirit night”. We will have extended worship, but we will also have an emphasis on teaching – learning how to pursue and walk in the Holy Spirit, how to minister more effectively, see the power of the HS in your prayers, learn how to listen to his voice, grow and walk with the Spirit in the context of worship as we are connecting to God as we seek His face in His presence.

On the phone they told me it’s a more intimate and less structured setting than the Sunday services, with a smaller attendance and more acoustic worship. They said it usually lasts about two hours. That sounded long to me but in fact I found the two hours went quickly when I was there.

First Impressions

We arrived a few minutes before the service began. It was a lovely evening and there were a few people on the steps outside the church. A friendly woman with nothing on her feet greeted us – it turned out she is Anita, who co-pastors the church with her husband Dave. As we went in we were greeted by one or two other people, including Rachel, who was very friendly and chatted with us for a few minutes.

This Vineyard church meets in a traditional church building – a pretty stone church with a very high ceiling and huge stained glass windows. During the service I enjoyed looking at the window at the front end until it got too dark to see the colors in it any more.

There was no order of service or bulletin handed out for the service. I don’t know if they have one on Sunday mornings.

The people in the service, including the co-pastors and the worship team, were dressed in casual warm weather clothes. This added to the relaxed feeling of the service.

About 40 people attended the service.

The Worship Time

The service began with a brief announcement that we would sing for a while and then Anita would share some thoughts. We were told there was an open mike if anyone wanted to go up and say something or sing. My cousin-in-law was really taken with that. She said “How often does a church give up that much control to God, that they would have an open mike and let anyone say something or sing?” In fact no-one did use the open mike - but the point was that the staff trusted God enough to make it available.

The worship team was three people – an acoustic guitarist/singer, a keyboardist singer, and a guy on African drums. The music was amplified but not uncomfortably loud. I wasn’t used to worship music with those kind of drums. When the drummer was playing it gave the music a neat quality that I liked. The words of the songs were projected on a screen and were easy to read.

The songs we sang were on the slow meditative side, drawn out with instrumental interludes. I knew some, not others. There was a freedom I really appreciated in the way people participated: some people stood and some sat; some sang and some were quiet (maybe they were praying). So, there was no peer pressure to be participating any particular way.

Some people became emotional especially during the song “Awesome God – your great love for me”, which had words like “Your arms are the arms that draw me in a warm embrace”. A nice touch was that there was a box of tissues out at the front, which Rachel went to pick up and hand to a person who was crying a lot.

The Talk

After about 40 minutes the worship team brought the singing to a close and there were a few minutes of silence. Then Anita went up to the front, still nothing on her feet (her sandals were under her chair), and spoke for about the next half hour. She did not stand behind the ‘podium’ and where she stood was only about one step higher than where we sat. Those two things made her feel ‘close’ to us. Like everything else, this was relaxed – it felt like she was sharing some thoughts with us rather than ‘delivering’ a speech/sermon. On the other hand her comments were organized – she clearly had prepared them ahead of time.

I was pleased that the woman pastor was speaking that evening because I hadn’t had much opportunity to hear that when I’ve been at church in the past. This was because I mostly had been at churches which don’t permit women to be pastors or to bring a message to the whole church.

Anita began with a good word picture about how we can look at God through binoculars the wrong way around and make him too small. And worship can magnify God, turning them around for us.

Her message was one of challenge albeit spoken in a gentle way. Anita listed things which might be in us, which hinder God doing all he would like to do through the Holy Spirit. Such as pride, unforgiveness in broken relationships, lack of persistence in seeking God, and lack of faith. In the message and prayer following she challenged us to repent of where we have blocked the Holy Spirit and ask him to come and remove what needs removing, cleanse us and bring release.

The Prophetic Ministry

After Anita spoke and prayed she said “Now I’d like to have a time of prophetic ministry – I’d like the members of our prophetic team who are here to come to the front. Five people (four women and one man), three of the women in jeans, came up. I’d never been in a service where this happened so I didn’t know what to expect.

Then Anita said “These messages are meant to encourage you. If what is said to you doesn’t seem true to your in your heart you don’t need to receive it”. I was very glad she said that because I worry about what it might do to people to be told “God thinks this about you/wants to say this to you”, if they think they have to believe it, no matter whether it fits with what they know to be true about themselves or not.

Anita gave the mike to the nearest prophetic team member and said “Ok, who is first?” They all looked at each other for a couple of moments, but once one had volunteered to start, they all had things to say and took turns for a while saying them. The person with the mike would look at someone sitting in the congregation and say something like “[their name], I think God is saying this to me about you/God has put this on my heart for you..”. Some of them were quite impassioned as they shared.

The second or third comment was from Rachel, who looked at either me or my cousin-in-law and said “I don’t remember your name…”. We asked who she meant – she meant me. At that point, I was a little nervous about what she might say. I needn’t have worried though – her words were kind and encouraging. What Rachel said was along these lines: “You have walked faithfully with God through hard and difficult times and he is with you”.

As the team continued, many messages were along similar lines i.e. “you have struggled but God is with you; God loves you; God sees your faith and will reward you for it”. One person said (addressed to an individual) “God gave me this picture for you of a lamb with broken front legs; the father is holding it” – wow; that certainly was very emotionally powerful.

Praying For One Another

Anita brought that time to a close and said she’d like people to come forward for prayer who needed a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit. Her husband Dave stepped up and interjected something like “I feel strongly that we should pray for anyone with joint pain” There seemed to be a moment of slight disagreement between husband and wife then about whether joint pain people should come forward first or everyone at once. (That amused me because it seemed so real to see a husband and wife having a minor disagreement with each other :)) They went with everyone at once.

Anita said “Come and pray for people if you’re not coming forward to be prayed for – so you all should be up here”. That made me a little nervous and it seemed like a good opportunity to go to the restroom ?. Rachel was coming over to me and I said I was just going to the restroom and would be back in a minute (true).

I think a few people left at this point but many stayed for the praying time.

When I got back most people were in small groups of two or more at the front praying or being prayed for - but a few were still sitting or in other places in the church. My cousin-in-law and husband had gone up to the front and were being prayed for. I sat down where I’d been the whole service. Rachel was busy praying for someone. A neighbor came over and said “hi” and then someone else said “hi” who I had met a while ago at the church I was attending at the time.

Then Rachel was done and came over. I was wondering if she would say “Let’s pray” but she just re-emphasized that God had put it on her heart to say what she said. I didn’t say this to her, but I was thinking: I can relate to having that feeling of wanting to encourage people even though I’ve never been on a prophetic team.

After The Service

The service ended but many people didn’t rush out – they stayed around and chatted (even though there were no post-service refreshments of any kind). I introduced myself to co-Pastor Dave as he went by, because I wanted to meet him.

The three of us went over to tell the keyboardist/singer we appreciated her singing and then we left.

I was able to talk to my cousin-in-law and her husband about the service afterwards as we drove back to their hotel. They loved the service and were very glad we were able to attend it together before they flew back home first thing Sunday morning.

What I Didn’t Like

The only comment I didn’t like was when Anita said “Everyone should be up here”. I think she meant it as an encouragement to participate, not a ‘rule’, but I really didn’t want to go up so that was a bit of an awkward moment for me until I saw that a few others didn’t go up either.

There was one other thing that bothered me, although it might not have bothered anyone else. When co-Pastor Dave was walking by at the end of the service he looked like he didn’t want to stop but I stopped him anyway because I did want to meet him. He spoke a little then said something like “I’m sorry but I came here straight from a conference – I really need to go get my kids and take them for icecream or something”. And so he left.

That would have been fine – in fact I respect him prioritizing his immediate family that way.

However, when we walked out, about five minutes later (because we had talked to a worship team member in between), he was at the back deep in conversation with someone.

I think he had picked up his kids at that point, just as he said. But he clearly hadn’t left with them.

I don’t know what to think about that. If he had known he might still be around after getting his kids he could easily have said to me “If my kids don’t want to leave immediately I’ll be at the back – come talk to me more there if you like”.

I want to make excuses for him but something in me says “Isn’t it about time you stopped making excuses for every pastor who hasn’t had time for you?”

What I Liked

Overall this was the most relaxed, free service I ever remember being at and the people who interacted with us were very friendly. It was nicely uncomplicated for me going somewhere where I had no ‘history’ and no-one knew things about me which could make it complicated. And I didn’t say any of those things – I stuck to friendly greetings/chit-chat/thank yous - because I wanted it to be an uncomplicated experience.

Being there was a positive experience for me and I’m glad I went.

(I will write separately about how it is for me being in a church service - since that’s somewhat relevant but it’s not specific to this church visit.)

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