St Lawrence is an adorable church. After WW2 a new subdivision was built and settled primarily by veterans. Being a new neighborhood, it didn’t have a church nearby, but the people started a Sunday school in rented space (I think they rented from a school, but I’m not sure). Eventually a couple of people got together and decided enough was enough, they wanted a real church. But other people were upset about it, because they felt that the Presbyterians would take over (it had been non-denominational or multi-denominational up to this point) and they wouldn’t have a place anymore. And the nearest Presbyterian church was upset because they felt the new church would be encroaching on their territory. But anyway, that worked out and everyone is happy now.
Eventually St Lawrence bought its own building and moved it to its current location. The building they bought was a former gun club. I like to think that it’s very biblical that they took something like a gun club and turned it into a church. Although personally I think gun clubs are awesome and there’s nothing wrong with them, but you get my drift. I told this to Cesar and he was like, “so what? They just bought a building that happened to be at one point used for guns, it’s nothing special, just a normal transaction.” I wonder if he remembers saying that.
My church is very small and very quaint. It’s more of a chapel than a church in appearance, but it does the work of a church 10 times its size!
So that brings me back to my original point. I love the church I go to, and I feel a bit guilty when I don’t go to St Lawrence (especially considering I am in the choir so people know when I’m not there), but on the other hand, I like to go to other churches too sometimes.
About a month ago I went to a Portuguese church. I was at the Laundromat one day and it was beautiful outside, so I went for a walk while waiting for my clothes to dry. And that’s when I noticed it. I do a lot of biking and walking, so I know this area well, but this church was so perfectly tucked in on a residential street, I wouldn’t have seen it unless I walked directly by it.
So I visited the following Sunday. The church was very beautiful. It was an old church that had been updated, but still kept its charm.
The service was, of course, in Portuguese. I know some Portuguese, enough to carry out a mindless msn conversation. But I couldn’t even distinguish one word from another. I don’t mean to blame everyone but me, but I think it was because its European Portuguese, not Brasilian Portuguese. And people from Portugal run their words together. It was cool though to hear the music. Some of the songs were ones I knew in English, only with Portuguese lyrics, but most were completely new. I found it really fun to listen to. Even the old hymns were cool. In English, even if I’ve never heard the hymn before, there is a certain old hymn quality that makes everything vaguely familiar. But in Portuguese, that quality is something diffent. So everything was really new.
Finally there is Knox, which is the church I usually go to when I vist my grandparents. It’s a very beautiful old church with fancy carved wood everything and stained glass windows and….. A real pipe organ!
But other than looking cool, it’s pretty blah as a church.
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