Yesterday, I biked 100 miles to Portland, Oregon. It was grueling. The highway in Washington was unkempt and treacherous, as though Hansel and Gretel had skipped along it, leaving broken bottles and nails in their wake so they could get back to Seattle. I even saw a rusty steak knife, just lying there unassumingly in the middle of the road.
Needless to say, I got three flat tires, which is way more than I ever get. I was quite unhappy, although I did make good time. 100 miles in 12 hours, including breaks. Fantastic.
I rushed to get to Portland because I wanted to attend Wednesday night services at Life Change Ministries, a large, mostly African American church on the north side of the city. The church has a rich history, and is one of the most, if not the most, influential black churches in Oregon.
Originally, it was the Immanuel Interracial Free Methodist Church, started in 1957, and housed in a small A-frame.
But in 1996, it seemed like it was all going to come down. The church was burned by an arsonist, one of many black church burnings around the country at the time. Many of them were racially motivated, and this one was thought to be too, until a young African-American man was tried and convicted, apparently having other motives.
After the fire, the church left the Methodist denomination, and became temporarily homeless, holding services in many other churches before they gained this large facility in 1999:
For a weekday service, this one was long, lasting more than 90 minutes. It was very moving, beginning with spirituals that everyone seemed to know. People were really getting into the spirit of the Lord, clapping their hands, raising them in praise, and swaying in the aisles.
I kept wanting to take a photograph of everyone, but there were so many participatory moments that I was drawn into that I was never really able to just sneak to the side and snap one.
One of these moments was a group prayer session, when small groups of three to five people, whoever was standing by each other, would circle and pray aloud. I ended up in a group with three other people, each praising the Lord and giving thanks. Even though I’ve been going to church for quite a while, I’ve never been very good at vocal prayers. But a man in my group seemed to take it up for me, before I even had a chance to speak.
“We thank you, Jesus, for bringing Matthew here,” he said. “He has such a great love for you, Jesus, and wishes to praise your name and be in your kingdom. He realizes that you are the way and the light and thanks you for all of the blessings you have provided him.”
He continued in this manner for all of the members of the group. It made me a bit uncomfortable. Other than my name, he had no idea who I was, or why I was at the church. If I was a seeker, undecided in my faith, he could have really scared me away with such presumption. But, of course, people like to assume that strangers are of the same background as they – it avoids friction.
By the time the preacher asked for people to give testimonies, there were too many people who raised their hand for a chance to speak than time would allow. One of the speakers, Ron, gave an especially moving testimony, tearing up as he spoke about difficulties with his daughter and keeping his household intact. But his love for Jesus never seemed to falter.
“He’s been my friend, my guide, and my lover,” he said. “However far I’ve gotten, it’s because he is always with me. [crying] I don’t know what I’d do without him. He is always with me, and speaks to me, telling me the right thing to do. Our conversations are the source of my hope, knowing he’s walking with me.”
After the testimonies, the preacher, Mark Strong, gave a very lively, moving sermon, which I found personally inspiring. He read from Ephesians and then spoke of the Devil and personal responsibility.
“I remember an old story about the Devil. He was sitting on the stairs in front of the church, crying, when someone asked him, ‘Why are you so sad?’
‘Because everyone’s always blaming me for things I didn’t do!’ the Devil moaned.”
The preacher started gesticulating wildly, walking around the floor. “That’s the whole issue,” he said. “The Devil isn’t responsible for every bad thing people do. They just don’t want to take responsibility!”
He continued on, talking about the laziness of the human condition, and how people don’t always want to do right, and justify not doing so due to demonic influence. It’s something a lot of people need to here.
After the service, I was eventually approached by Strong, who asked me about how I liked the service. “So you’re the guy on the bike,” he declared.
He knew who I was because I had sent the church an e-mail a few days before I attended, explaining my trip and that I wanted to meet with someone from the church to talk about its history and current issues. No one responded.
I tried asking him a little about the church, but he responded with generalizations about Christianity in general, before excusing himself after a minute or two. I was a bit perturbed that I had come there for so little information.
But then it just got worse. While everyone was extremely nice to me, often coming up to me to ask be about my trip and wish me well, no one wanted to actually have a real conversation with me. Other than offering religious platitudes, I was presented with invisible walls.
The best example was a air-conditioning salesman who I talked to for a few minutes. We had a friendly conversation about the weather, biking, Portland, and many other things. But when I wanted to ask him some of his views on religion, here’s what he said:
“Whatever your question you’re going to ask is, the answer is Jesus.”
Really? If I asked how often he attends, the answer is Jesus? Or his favorite color – Jesus?
I was tired and annoyed. I don’t mind people not wanting to talk to me, but I felt I had been wasting my time. If the church didn’t want me to know about it, as was the sense I was getting, I wish they would have simply responded to my e-mail so I wouldn’t have had to bike so hard.
If it had been earlier, I might have stayed longer and tried talking to even more people. But it was around 9 p.m., and I needed to find where I was sleeping that night.
So I’ll end this with the two pictures I did get. First, people conversing about God after the service:
And second, the mural in the back of the stage:
