Potter's House (Part 1)

Disclaimer:

Why I Wrote This Over the Course of a Month

This one’s needed to gestate for a while.  A long while.  Here’s why:

The other day, my friend Kiki preached in the chapel at Duke Divinity to provide words of wisdom and reassurance to the incoming first year class.  As expected, it was an amazing message, and I found myself getting into it.  Along with several peers, I offered choruses of amens and various other signs of verbal affirmation throughout the sermon.  At the end of the message, we applauded, and many of us even stood as an extra sign of support and celebration, and all of this seemed completely appropriate to me.  The amens and applause were affirmations of the gifts that God has given Kiki and signs of agreement with her message, a reassurance from members of that community that God was speaking a truth through her words.  There’s something holy and wonderful about being able to provide that sort of blessed conversation in worship, and I like it, but later on in the day, I heard an incoming first year student make a comment:

“That sermon was amazing, but I think it’s rude for people to talk in church.”

I was assisting with first year orientation at the time and had other responsibilities, so I never got to initiate a serious conversation with the student.  Still, the incident got me thinking: I actually learned a lot about that student’s background from his one comment.  I learned that he comes from a tradition where talkback is not encouraged or perhaps misunderstood, and I learned that he has not yet been exposed to it regularly enough to develop an understanding of it as affirmation and enthusiasm (rather than the rudeness he perceived).  I could feel an uncertainty in him about this new phenomenon, perhaps tinged with additional anxiousness due to his new environment in the divinity school.  Perhaps there was even a subconscious desire to cling to his upbringing a little since he had been exposed to so many new things that day or an eagerness to appear critical and contemplative so as to impress peers who might be listening.  All of this is information I will need to keep in mind if I ever get the chance to bump into him again and discuss the issue with him (something which I hope will happen-- assuming I can even pick him out again from the sea of new faces I encountered during orientation).  More than anything though, his comment helped reaffirm something that Erin and I discussed at great length after my visit to the Potter’s House:

When we find ourselves made uncomfortable by something in worship, that experience can tell us a lot more about ourselves than about the people worshiping around us.  When something makes us uncomfortable, it’s a chance to explore the factors in our own backgrounds that have influenced our preferences in worship and to reflect on how this new worship experience can potentially change our existing biases and expectations.  For example, when a singer at Church of the Resurrection seemed like he was showboating a little too much, I felt uncomfortable, and it gave me a chance to explore my own history with the thorny issue of performance in worship.  When the associate pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle told the congregation right upfront how much money they needed and asked that the congregation pray for a “surprise blessing” in the weeks to come, it offended me, but it also made me reflect on why it is that I’m so uneasy talking about money matters in church (especially since it’s actually one of the most discussed topics in the Bible).  Why is Joel Osteen’s prosperity theology so bothersome to me?  Why am I okay with some people crying in church but not others?  Why do “smiley white worship leaders” of the Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman ilk get under my skin so much?  Why am I so utterly particular about how people talk about disenfranchised groups, especially the homeless?  Why do I judge a church more harshly when I don’t see women leading worship?  Why am I so averse to affluent suburban settings?

These are just a handful of the many issues that I’ve had to confront thanks to worshiping in new and different environments all summer.  I quickly discovered that some of these questions were rooted in deep theological beliefs, but some were just connected to unfounded biases that needed to be discarded.  Worshiping in different spaces helped me realign my priorities a bit, and it modified my understanding of so many issues facing the Church.  Had I not had this experience this summer, there are many issues now occupying the center of my attention that I might not have given a second thought before.  So many questions came up this summer that I know will ultimately make me a better and more discerning pastor, and I’m hoping to spend the next few years developing a curriculum to help other students have similar experiences, but that might have to be its own post some other time.  In short, I feel like I have different eyes and ears now, and I look forward to the many conversations in the months and years to come as I continue to reflect on this summer.

Why am I saying all of this here at the outset?  Well, Potter’s House was a very special and different experience for me.  I was very much out of my element (probably more so than at any other church this summer), and there were many components of the service that I’m still meditating over.  Much of this comes from the simple fact that I was a white, middle class, Cooperative Baptist kid from East Memphis worshiping in a predominantly black, socioeconomically diverse, nondenominational megachurch in the heart of Texas.  Yep, I wasn’t exactly your typical Potter’s House attendee, but as I look around that room one more time in my memories, I’m still not sure there really is a “typical” Potter’s House attendee.  Some people were dressed to the nines; others were in t-shirts and jeans.  There was a wide age range, and even though there was a vast black majority, there was still great racial diversity in the room.  I guess I’ll get into more of that later though.  I just wanted to say at the beginning: I think I learned more about myself than about the church, but I think there’s really nothing wrong with that.

Let’s get started . . .

The Last Sunday Morning on the Road

Metroplex (for scale)

Three alarm clocks.  That’s how little I trust myself to get out of bed these days.  I set three different alarm clocks.  Thankfully, the first two wound up being sufficient, and I was showered and out the door bright and early.  You see, Potter’s House only has two weekly services (Sunday morning and Wednesday evening), and the Sunday service starts at 9AM-- not a big deal except for the fact that I was staying clear on the other side of the Dallas Metroplex, and that’s a pretty sizable distance to cover.  In the old Transformers cartoons, I remember that the biggest Autobot they had was named “Metroplex,” and he could transform from an entire city into a giant, fighting robot.  Driving across that massive urban sprawl made me realize what an apt name it was.

Upon arriving at The Potter’s House, I was ushered to an open parking space by no less than a dozen parking attendants, all clad in reflective neon vests and sweating in the already-overpowering Dallas heat.  They were all enthusiastic and thanked me and said, “Bless you!” as I got out of my car and headed across the parking lot toward the building.  Parking at Potter’s House is a slick and efficient operation, with two parking lots with a pedestrian overpass in between them, police officers directing traffic, cones blocking off lanes of the street, and an almost comically large number of parking attendants directing cars into spaces.  As all the parking volunteers were fairly young (early 20s or even late teens), I wondered if working at Potter’s House was part of a youth service program of some kind or maybe even an aspect of the church’s T.O.R.I. program (Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative).  The attendants were a little too busy for me to ask though, so I just headed toward the building.  I was surprised to find the parking lot already quite full even though it was still thirty minutes until the start of the service.

The Potter’s House building is an impressive structure visible from the highway, but like so many of the megachurches, it looks a little more like a convention center than a church.  A cross extends upward from the white and gray façade, on which the church name appears in large declaratory letters in a rather standard gold font.  The building’s exterior is highly angular, and a number of tour buses rested under the slightly upturned awning.  There was also an ambulance at the ready, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of that going in.  Did people regularly pass out during the famously long services here?  Reba Collins did warn me back at Willow Creek that I would be spending quite a bit of time here.  Should I have made greater efforts to eat a quick breakfast?  I moved toward the large glass doors.

A well-dressed older middle aged woman at the door greeted me and said, “I hope you brought your dancing shoes!”  Sadly, my dancing shoes were still in a box in my closet in Durham, but I hoped my casual loafers would be equally acceptable.  As I continued through the bustling foyer, a tall man who was dressed in black and looked to be about thirty walked up to me and told me, “Sir, I’m going to need to see what’s in your bag.”  I was a little surprised since I hadn’t been searched at any of the other churches.  Hell, ever since I shaved my beard and went back to short hair, even airports leave me alone.  I didn’t like the sense of distrust, but I complied, showing him my bag’s contents: hat, notebook, camera, pen, glasses.  The man was satisfied and moved on, and I was left to stand there wondering what that was about.  I guess Potter’s House has had some incidents in the past, and maybe I looked suspicious as a lone white male going into a famous predominantly-black megachurch.  For a split second there, this incident made me appreciate the suspicion with which black folks are sometimes treated in a predominantly-white atmosphere.  This was the first of many times that I would wish I had brought a black friend along with me to show me the ropes and make me look less conspicuous.  Actually, you know what?  I think it’s time for a quick italicized public service announcement:

---ATTENTION---

As much as we want to argue to the contrary, and as unsettling as this reality sometimes is (especially given the whole “one body” thing stressed throughout the Epistles), black churches and white churches are very, very different cultural entities.  Both have unique customs and histories, and both have their problems of inaccessibility to outsiders (particularly outsiders of other races).  Just saying “We’re all Christians” sort of oversimplifies the state of things and ignores some highly significant issues of cultural identity.  While we all worship the same God and the same Savior, black Christians and white Christians each have to adapt to a new set of norms and taboos when worshiping in each other’s churches (How much do we talk back to the sermon?  What are people’s proper titles?  How significant is this particular service or ritual? etc.).  We are learning to worship together, but it can still be kind of awkward sometimes, and we need to go ahead and own up to that and be patient with each other when some aspects of worship seem confusing.  We need to ask questions of each other in honesty and humility when something doesn’t make sense, and we need to keep in mind that, when trying to bridge the gap, a little confusion is inevitable.  I’ve done my best to respect the traditions of Potter’s House in discussing my time there (even going so far as to use people’s titles rather than my preferred default of first names).  Still, there were a few things here and there that kind of made me scratch my head.  Please be patient with me for the things in this service that I have surely misinterpreted or misunderstood.  As stated earlier, many of them will reflect more on me and my background than on my fellow worshipers.  Okay, enough of my white guilt.  Back to the post . . .

Uniformed ushers were stationed in each section of seating, directing people to open seats as we entered.  Each usher was wearing black pants or a floor-length skirt and a blue dress shirt with the Potter’s House logo emblazoned on it.  Like the parking attendants, these ushers were very friendly, but they clearly meant business.  In my Free Church Worship class last year, I had several classmates who grew up in traditionally black churches, and they had briefed me a bit on how being an usher is a very significant thing, complete with special training and even its own holiday of sorts (“Usher Anniversary”).  I didn’t really get it then, but seeing these ushers in action made me appreciate the station a bit more, and I found myself feeling just a bit envious of the formal distribution of responsibility among the ushers at Potter’s House.  At the church where I grew up, the ushers didn’t even ush all that much.  All they did was hand out bulletins at the door and maybe pass the offering plates if we were short on deacons that morning.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that being an usher was kind of treated as grunt work-- not a position to be celebrated.  Hmm . . . I kind of like that inversion: taking a seemingly grunt job and making it a position of honor.  There might be kind of a Christly role reversal at work there.  Before I could muse on this for too long, I realized that I still needed to take notes on the sanctuary around me.

It was amazing how full that big room already was, especially since so many of the other churches I’ve attended didn’t even opened up their sanctuaries/auditoriums/whatever until just ten or fifteen minutes before the service.  At 8:30, the place was at least half-full, and every seat on the ground level was filled by the start of the service at 9:00.  By about an hour into the service, I don’t think there was an open seat in the room, but I noticed on my way in that, like Saddleback, Potter’s House has overflow seating in the foyer, so I’m sure people arriving later still got to listen to the sermon, even if it was just on a screen outside the sanctuary.  The room itself was very impressive and rather traditionally adorned by comparison to some of the other megas.  Contemporary gospel music piped in as we awaited the start of the service.  The stage was covered with velvety blue curtains with a cross projected onto them, and standing directly in front of these was a wide pulpit with pots and plants underneath.  Two large screens rested on either side of the stage, and they bore the Potter’s House logo.  Like at Lakewood, I noticed a camera crane over on the left side of the sanctuary, perfectly positioned to provide audience close-ups and sweeping pans of the whole room.  Also like at Lakewood, the presence of this crane kind of unnerved me and reminded me that this church has its commercial component as well.  There’s just something about camera cranes; they make me uneasy, but I’m also strangely fascinated by them.  Camera cranes are kind of like lava lamps; I don’t actually find much purpose in them, but you just can’t not watch them.  They’re entrancing.

Though the room was full of pews, each pew was lined with comfortable individual seat cushions, and small, white buckets rested in the aisles next to each pew, ready to be passed when the time came for the offertory.  All around me, conversations were taking place, and people were greeting each other and hugging one another like old friends.  I was a little amused when a family walked in with several girls in matching dresses and hats-- made me think of Erin’s stories of the meticulously matched apparel from her childhood.  For the most part, people were attired in all variety of clothing, running the full range from suits and formal dresses to shorts and t-shirts, and this was a welcome sight for me since the formal-looking ushers had me feeling very underdressed at first.  With my usual untucked dress shirt and jeans, my attire seemed to be almost exactly middle of the road or maybe just a hair casual for the environment.  I also observed that there was a very wide age range here, and the age distribution seemed to be fairly even, with the highest concentration probably being adults in their 40s and 50s but also with a significant young adult population as well-- quite a few young families.

I have to admit that I was in one of my less social moods, so I was more interested in observation than conversation that morning.  After all, I had only just finished the Houston material the day before, and I was still wiped out from that beast of a project.  Additionally, I knew that I would be driving eight hours to Memphis the next day, and I was also feeling kind of tired in general, so I just didn’t really feel like talking to people that much.  This church marked the culmination of my journey.  I would be getting ordained at the next destination, and I would be heading back to North Carolina from there.  With all that coming up, I guess I just wanted to take a break and check out mentally for a bit rather than questioning every person I saw, and the woman sitting next to me in the pew was happy to allow this.  She was middle aged and well dressed, and she had brought her mother with her that morning, positioning the older woman on her other side.  This middle aged woman didn’t say a word to me throughout the entire time we were there . . . well, except for when Bishop Jakes told us to say something to our neighbor, but I’m not sure how you count that in terms of hospitality.  She also elbowed me sharply in the side whenever Bishop Jakes told us to reach out and touch a neighbor, and I’m not sure you can really count that either.  Other than the moments where she was specifically instructed to do so, this woman did not so much as make eye contact with me.  Her mother, on the other hand, was quite friendly even though she seemed to be getting a bit senile.  In the span of five minutes, I was asked twice, “My, isn’t it cold in here?  Does it feel cold to you?” each time as if it were a revelation to her.  I couldn’t help but smile at her slight absentmindedness as we talked, and I assured her that we were probably seated under a vent and that it would warm up as more people came into the sanctuary and moved around a bit.  I always appreciate a friendly personality, even if that individual is starting to struggle a bit with memory.