Church #14. Cornerstone Community Church.

Broadcasting live Sunday morning on the 3 pew form the back on the left hand side. It’s time for another church service! Let’s do this!

Like most morning when I roll out of bed, I know I am going to church, I just never know what to expect. This little church sitting on the side of 109st looks like a calm quite place. I was greatly mistaken.

I walked into what seemed to be an older church, all of the same paint on the wall and décor in tact from the time it was first put there, some time ago. I the carpet was new, that along with some of the musical instruments at the front of the church, but otherwise nothing looked changed.

I noticed that the back of the pews had no bibles in them, just song books, and yes I went the whole church service without a bible (everyone else brought their own) . It was not a major issue since the scripture was projected onto the wall at the front as it was discussed. When I started this project I decided that I would approach every church as if I was a person that walks in fresh off the street. Which means I wear jeans, a t-shirt, running shoes, and a jacket and bring no bible with me. Plain and simple.

From where I was sitting I noticed that the center pew, 3^rd from the front had an excessive amount of vandalism to the back of it but none others that I could see had any similar issue. I felt that I might be writing another sad story about “the dying church” phenomenon.  I was so wrong about that.

A lot of churches I visit allow me to pass thru in a very anonymous manner. Normally the only person that knows why I am there , is the sweet granny in front of me that turns around to shake my hand, then the church leader after I got up to introduce myself. There is no hiding at this church. Even before the service started, I am sure that I had personal greeting from more than half the people in the room. There were roughly 25 people at this church service most of them in the 30-40 year old range and a least half of them were African-Canadian.

As I watched the set up I stared to realize I was in for a show, especially when I looked to my right to see a little boy attempting to carrying 2 large tambourines up the aisle. This worship service actually included 4 tambourines being played while people sang; I have never seen more than one in use anywhere else.

Anyone that knows me will say I am a passionate female musician and fully encourage music education. So you can understand how heart warming when I saw a vibrant young lady in a bright colored dress walk past me with a guitar case strapped to her back, and move to the front to set up. She sang a played beautifully and her future is bright.

At this church there is a song for everything, and everyone sings at the top of their voice without holing back. Start of the service end of the service, during communion, during the offering, there is a song for all of it! This often includes hand clapping, foot stomping, hand waving, and of course, many tambourines.  Very little will hold this passionate group of worshipers back. Even if the instruments fall out of time with the singing, they just keep going.

Before we stared the bible lesion for the day, the leader of the church asked if there was anyone new there today ( it was me and one other gentleman) we went up and received a new pen with the churches name on it, and then something happened that I have never encountered before, I was asked to go up and speak in front  of a church.

Wow. Blew me away!

After my speech we sat down and had our bible lesson. At this point I started to realize how totally unique this church was to any others that I have come and seen yet so far. What really got me was the leader of the church. She spoke about god with this 110% confidence that I have never seen before. In a lot of churches you will hear things like “we pray the lord to be with us today….” But at the CCC the message is “GOD is HERE! TODAY! RIGHT NOW!”, “Miracles CAN happen in this room TODAY!”  There is no room for an ounce of doubt in her message.

You are taught in school that when the teacher ( or preacher in this case) is taking that you need to stay quite. Not here. In this church it is perfectly acceptable to yell thru the service phrases like “thank you god” “praise the lord” “hallelujah” and may other words of joy.   

One of the stories in the service today was talking about the woman that lived with hunched over back for 18 years that was healed. Jesus was at the synagogue doing his regular Sunday preaching when a woman suffering a seriously bad back wondered in the door. Jesus stopped, spoke to the woman, removed the spirit of infirmity that plagued her and she stood up tall and was healed. The some bone-headed man spoke up and said that Jesus was being a bad example because he had just healed a woman , technically he had just “preformed work on the Sabbath” which the ancient Jews was not tolerated. So Jesus looks at this guy and pretty much tells he to stick it up his rear-end and to think of the 18 years of torture this poor woman has been suffering. The crowd was ashamed of themselves to say the least.

There was also mention of Lazarus, a personal friend of Jesus’. One days when he is out and about, Jesus gets word that his good friend Lazarus had died, and so he rushes to his home to go see. His family had already raped this guy of for burial ( in an almost mummy like fashion) and were pretty much carrying him away to put him in his burial chamber. Jesus was able to stop them before they closed the door, he went to his friends body and confronted and removed the spirit of death that had taken over his friend. Still wrapped in his burial clothes Lazarus sat up alive as ever and any non-believers in the crowd had all doubt removed. Christ is the messiah. I particularly like this story because it is not just someone that is ill or suffering that is healed, this person is stone cold dead. It just shows the powers of god authority over death. Now for my favorite poster. 

Communion was had, juice and soda crackers and at the end there was something I would have never expected. There was a special prayer, a personal prayer to take a moment to connect with god to ask him to come and work thru you to help heal any physical ailments that you might be suffering.  So with open hands and raised heart the church broke out speaking to the heavens for god to come into them and work his hand against any physical issues they might be suffering. And if you know me, you know what I prayed for. My feet.

Now this last part I almost forgot but I could not help but notice this little singe in the front lawn of the church, and if any of you ride the buses I am sure you have seen this too… 

I must admit, it was marketed supper well because from the ads on the bus I was not quite sure what it was. But I did finally discover what it was. It is basically a 7-10 day introduction course in Christianity for newcomers. So it is mainly just an opportunity for people to get a lot of questions answered. It is run by Alpha Canada and is being held thru a verity of churches in Edmonton.

I may have over 80 churches to go, but I would come back to this one any day, and I think you should too! God is great and he lives every Sunday in the little Corner Stone Church on 109st.  

Church #13. McLaurin Memorial Baptist Church

Welcome back! So this is Baptist Church round 2 for me. As much as i enjoyed the first one i went to I was still hungry for more and this place did a pretty good job of feeding me. 

As you may notice i actually remembered to take a photo this time. The roof draws a strong resemblance  to an upside down boat and makes me think about what it must have like to be inside Noah's ark. One way or another, it was impressive. if you look on sides you will notice that they still had their Christmas garland hanging up ( but at least they are ready for next Christmas) mixing well with the palm trees in the front left hand corner . I didn't get a photo of the stain glass squares ( left side wall). They were very simple in nature, like a simple modern art piece composed of rectangles in the primary colours. I refer to this as "poor man's stain glass". But in all fairness, the true stain gals art pieces are stupid expensive. The back of the church has a large black backdrop that i find strong resemblance of something that one finds in a theater and a white stone set of statues before the alter (Jesus and his apostles.)

The demographics of this place surprised me a bit, 55 people-ish.i think only half the population was actually seniors and the rest was a mix of people of a very of ages and races including teens kids, parents, 20-soething year olds, etc. 

We had one young African lady come up and speak ( dressed in a lovely black dress with neon pick scarf and matching high heels.) The theme of her speech was focused on the concept of "Jesus the Redeemer" and it was powerful. One of her focuses was to encourage the crowd to put up their hands and "Proclaim My Redeemer Live!" and to always glorify god and to always put up our love an faith to him no matter how hard life becomes to know god is with us always. She quoted the story of Job. For those of you that don't know, in that day, Job was the most fully committed worshiper and follower in all of god’s world, and loved by god. One day god and Satin are having an argument and Satin claims that the only reason Job fallows god is because he has given him such a good life here on earth, if that was taken away that Job would disown god. God takes up Satins challenge and says that Job's faith is true and unyielding and that Satin can do whatever he wants to him, but may not harm his body. So Satin goes to work and destroys everything in Job's life. Crops die, children die, goes bankrupt, losses the house, you name it, it happened. ( never mind Job's wife that nagged him daily just to disown god to make all this madness stop) and at the end of it all when Satin had mess up and burnt everything in his power to make Job's life hell. At the very end when he had literately lost everything. Job looked to heavens and declared that he knows his god loves him and that he is on god’s team. After that the devil gave in, and god slowly healed his situation, more children were born, a new house was built and life slowly went back to the way it was. 

She also mentioned the footprints, hang on let me got my fridge magnet... 

And of those of you with week vision I will type it out again. The Lord said "My precious child, I never left you during your time of trial. Where you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you." One of my favorite bible quotes.

Then we had the leader of the church come up and speak. We got a very long and in depth history on King David and how he united the 12 tribes of Israel. So When David united the regions he needed  to pick a city to rule out of  and the one he had at the moment was not that great. He had a good amount to pick from, but in the end he decided that Jerusalem was the best spot. It had its perks, it had a good military deference, fresh water and all the standard stuff but the interesting part was that it was a RELIGIOUSLY AND POLITICALLY NEUTRAL CITY. Unlike all the other cities in the region it was not ran by Israelite s or other very religious groups, but buy Canaanites, a neutral group. So it pretty much made it the Sweden of the Kingdom of David. So you know where he went.

There is a lot of info in here, but I tried my best to sum it up nice and easy. So the Israelite s get in there and build a massive temple in the city to house god’s spirit and replace the tabernacle (aka. Giant portable tent used to house all religious ceremonies and act as the house of god. Moses had many conversations directly with god just inside and outside the tabernacle). So in short the Israelite s are thrilled. They have everything they could possibly want. Their enemies have been shot down, they have been delivered into the promise land flowing with milk and honey and falafel. ( just kidding) :P They live in this amazing city and have built the most amazing temple to hold their god( and everyone is talking about it) and Zion was home bro.

Meanwhile there are a few people at home that are not out getting drunk, and those were the profits (Isaiah etc.) of the time. Since being delivered to this paradise on earth the people of Israel knowing that they are “God’s Chosen People” decide to throw all moral and responsibility to the wind and Jerusalem pretty much turns into sin city Los Vegas. The few thinkers of the time were noticing this and starting writing and telling people that this is not the way to go and that bad things will come down on the city. The people of coarse totally ignored  these warnings believe that they were “god’s chosen people” and in their mind, immune from all consequences ( even thou before entering the kingdom Moses warned them a MILLION TIMES not to mess this up) . Que Act 2. Babylonians walk in overtake the city, temple gets destroyed,  Israelite s get dragged out of their kicking and screaming wondering on how god allowed this to happen *face palm.

So after the population of Jerusalem was dragged off into exile, they started reading the writing of the profits of the time and realizing that god does not dwell in a single temple or the tabernacle, or just in one city. God is within all. Forever changing the perspective’s of the ancient Jewish people.

I was surprised to see the worship band up there because according to the service list they were only supposed to be playing at the earlier service that day ( which I slept over) so that was fun.

Now for a spiritual fun fun-time family fact. Jesus and John the Baptist are related. When marry was pregnant she when to visit her cousin Elizabeth, thou being a good bit older then her, was also pregnant at the time. Mary gives birth to Jesus, Elizabeth gives birth to the person we know as John the Baptist. So not only was Jesus baptized by a distant family member, he was also likely very similar in age. The more you know.