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noun; Two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.
We drove into Eugene this morning to attend Cascade Presbyterian Church, but their bulletin and all their signage says they're City Church Eugene. Yes, we were at the right place and no, I don't know why the names don't match.
This congregation is in the process of selling their church building which is about a mile away. They now meet at a nightclub called The HiFi Music Hall, a concert venue for rock and indie bands. So the worship songs and the pastor's sermon were delivered under a disco ball.
We sang typical Presbyterian songs with a typically Presbyterian level of energy (they'll be in heaven before anyone else because 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says "the dead in Christ will rise first"). The band was made up of a gal singing (well) and playing an acoustical guitar, a bass guitar, a drum box, and a banjo.
The pastor, a graduate of a Southern Baptist university and seminary, was dressed in casual pants and and an open collared shirt until it came time to preach when he put on the classic black clergy robe. Don't know why on that one, either.
His sermon was from 1 Peter 1, but I only know that because four paragraphs from that chapter were printed in the 14-page bulletin. He told us he's preaching through 1 Peter, but not in the normal sense, just using it to share some thoughts.
Sorry, I don't know what those thoughts were; I totally missed his point(s), assuming he had any. Pam started off taking notes but gave up after about 10 minutes. After that she worked on staying awake.
He told two anecdotes about a trip he made to Alaska, one at each end of his sermon and each of which involved a Grizzly bear. We didn't catch the point of either story or how they connected to what he was saying, but a really good preacher never passes up an opportunity to use the phrase, "the largest terrestrial carnivore." Saying, "the biggest meat eater on land" would be so...Baptist.
Never use a single syllable word when a 3-syllable word is available. Case in point: don't say, job when vocation can be used.
Just to seal the deal he mentioned, "John Bunyan's work written from prison" (How many people knew that's Pilgrim's Progress?) and quoted Barnhouse a couple of times.
To demonstrate his skill he preached from a manuscript while chewing gum.
(Wanna guess what grade this old homiletics prof would have given someone who did that?)
Every week they have communion at the end of the service. A note in the bulletin said the outer ring of the tray was grape juice and the inner rings were wine.
We agreed that while the whole thing didn't work for us it's really too bad because this was far and away The Friendliest Church we've been to since moving to OR. In every other church we've visited nobody - no one! - spoke to us except for a guy at one of the churches that said, "Good morning" to us as he handed us their bulletin.
The people at Cascade Presbyterian, aka City Church Eugene, are the opposite, with four or five of them actually engaging us in conversation. They were very warm and friendly.
The search continues
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