The celebration continues at Faith Community Church, located a few blocks from Malone University on Cleveland Avenue. This hometown local church, at first glance, seems to be proactively pursuing it's namesake: Their local community. A quick web search will land you on their homepage, which is filled with information about Canton's history, demographics, and current events. FCC is clearly highly concerned with making an impact on the community of Canton, as they undoubtedly have been for nearly seventy years.
Cleveland Avenue is a prominent road in the area, and the church is literally thirty feet from roaring traffic. But crossing the threshold brought Hannah and I into a place of tranquility and worship. Gentle rays glimmer through blue stained-glass windows, softening the atmosphere and calming the heart in preparation for worship. And amid the storms and stresses that life brings, peace in the presence of God is precisely what we needed.
Personal greetings by the pastor and several members of the congregation were followed by a pleasant array of musical numbers—worship choruses, hymns out of hymnals, choral performances and a special music, all of which spoke strongly of God and his being more than we could ever need. Again, I find it necessary to mention how encouraging it is to see a church striving to balance that liminal space of upholding a timeless heritage yet becoming relevant to a rapidly changing society. Since this topic, however, has been touched on numerous times throughout this exploration, I'd like to hone in on a different aspect of Sunday morning's service.
As with many sermon series across the American church, two weeks ago was a message about the empty tomb. Pastor Elden continued this series, as he has been preaching through the Bible since last fall sometime. This past week we ventured into Acts, and I must say I saw "Church" laid out in an entirely new fashion.
Acts 1:8 explains how "Church" is going to get started, which comes about in the next chapter, during the celebration of the Jewish festival called Pentecost (or, Shaubuot). In short, this is the plan. "Power of the Holy Spirit comes on you twelve guys sitting in the upper room, and then you go." That's it. The next verse, Jesus is gone from the face of the earth. He doesn't leave any directions for a contingency plan. We, the Church, are the conduit of the grace and truth of Christ to the world.
In the scope of this semester-long exploration, then, it seems fitting that this simple definition can succinctly sum up the purposefulness and effectiveness of the Church. In what practical ways is a local church channeling the grace and truth of Christ? How can local churches strive together to channel Christ's message of grace and truth to their neighborhoods, communities, and world?
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