Religious identity and mission:
The Block Church is a non-denominational Christian multi site church that consists of primarily young adults who seek worship through community and performance of their faith.
Their mission statement is as follows, "We plan to plant churches and locations, we hope to develop leaders for the marketplace, we work to bless our neighbors, we give and serve to help the helpless.
Evidence: Community
When you go on their website you'll find that almost everything has something with "Block" in it. So, when a person joins the Block they are joining a small community of people who set out to help the larger (Philadelphia) community. The website depicts various block members picking up trash around the community as well as painting a building. When I visited the Block Church the first thing I noticed was how friendly they were. I was greeted at the door, introduced to other members, and guided to where the service was. As I was walking out the building, the lead singer of the service: stopped me, introduced himself, asked how I thought the service went, told me why he joined, and showed me how to sign up, and then introduced me to other members (all of which were extremely friendly). The website does do a good job depicting the community aspect of the church, but to actually see how community centered they are one must visit the church.
The first thing that you see when you go on the Block Church website is this picture of people putting on a performance. This is a great depiction of what goes on at the church. When I first walked into the church service I was astounded at what I saw. The atmosphere inside was like a rock concert. People in the front area were jumping up and down singing the words (people in the back were more so swaying but also singing as well. One of the main groups that people can join is called, Block Worship which the website describes as "a diverse team of musicians and creatives within our church". This group is no joke; they sound as professional as it gets.
- How does this church approach media?
The Block Church and media go hand and hand. The way I look at it, any media outside of the church is used as an informational tool. The website provides information like where the church is, what the church believes in, events that are coming up, how to donate, and how to get involved. While they do post the sermon on their website and Facebook page, I do not think you can experience the true message by just watching it online. When I first watched the sermon online for one of my previous blogs, I didn't "feel" any connection to what the pastor was saying. When I actually visited the Block Church service it was a totally different experience. The Block Church also has a strong connection with media within the actual church. The musical performance was riddled with technology i.e strobe lights, lyrics on the screen, electronic keyboard, ipads, and more. Following the performance, the theater sized screen dropped down and the sermon was played. As the pastor would go over the different readings and points a graphic would pop up on the bottom with text (as shown below). Overall, the block church uses media to spread their information and ideas, that being said it is not a one or the other type deal instead they blend together perfectly.
- Questions and feedback:
Do you think young people will start to switch over from traditional churches to multi site churches? Or do you feel like the people that attend these multi sit churches are an entirely different "market" of parishioners?
For me watching the streamed sermon was completely different when I watched it at the church with other people vs when I watched it alone on my laptop. Did you have a similar experience?
No comments:
Post a Comment