{"id":7777,"date":"2015-08-10T07:58:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T13:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7777"},"modified":"2015-08-11T08:23:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T14:23:37","slug":"at-your-service-beautiful-people-an-upbeat-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/08\/at-your-service-beautiful-people-an-upbeat-message\/","title":{"rendered":"At Your Service: Beautiful people, an upbeat message"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Word\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Word of Life Fellowship\u00a0is in a handsome building, appropriately enough.<\/p><\/div>\n

Word of Life Fellowship<\/strong>,\u00a01737 King Ave. W.
\nService<\/strong>: 10 a.m., Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014
\nLength of service<\/strong>: 1 hour, 8 minutes. Length of sermon<\/strong>: 26 minutes.<\/p>\n

I was a little nervous on my way to the Word of Life Fellowship. Having checked out the church\u2019s website, I had been struck by the dauntingly handsome staff members pictured there. Would they scorn me as too old, too unattractive?<\/p>\n

As it turns out, no. Here was another church full of welcoming people. And yet the handsomeness of the staff members did seem to carry over into the type of service offered. This was a very upbeat church, full of the kind of optimism that comes so naturally to people whose good looks and charm fill the potholes on life\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

\"AtYourService\"<\/a>The music, however, was not quite upbeat enough. A six-piece band\u2014with the by-now familiar male lead vocalist and a female accompanist\u2014played relentlessly for the first 24 minutes of the service.<\/p>\n

We were asked to stand for the entire time. I thought of sitting down, just to preserve my autonomy and to display my free will, but I didn\u2019t want to draw attention to myself. Besides, I was there for the whole experience, wasn\u2019t I? When in Rome\u2026<\/p>\n

The music was an unfortunate mix of pop-rock arrangements and traditional Christmas hymns, including \u201cJoy to the World,\u201d \u201cO Holy Night\u201d and \u201cO Come, O Come, Emmanuel.\u201d The resulting mish-mash resulted in awkward, difficult phrasings, and though I saw a few people making an effort to sing along, it was all but impossible.<\/p>\n

Even the singers in the band seemed to find it difficult, and gave this listener that uncomfortable feeling you get when a performer is visibly struggling to stay on track, and occasionally slipping. Or perhaps the strain was just more noticeable because I had to stand for nearly half an hour.<\/p>\n

\n
What is this series about?<\/h5>\n

To read the essay that introduced this series click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At any rate, the music ended at last and we all sat down and listened to a handsome gent with a booming, AM-radio voice making the weekly announcements. He also told us that Pastor Alex Chai would be continuing his sermon series, \u201cChristmas in Perspective,\u201d this week from the perspective of the Three Wise Men.<\/p>\n

Before the sermon, by way of a warm-up, there was a short video skit starring District Court Judge Russell Fagg, referred to in the video as \u201cMr. Judge,\u201d who was also in attendance in the flesh. The video was quite well done and involved Fagg telling a gathering of young children, evidently church members, about the Magi. One highlight: Fagg tells the children the Wise Men \u201ccame from the East,\u201d prompting a young child to ask, \u201cDid they come from Colstrip?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then came Pastor Alex, fit and trim and handsome, dressed in black jeans and a black-and-white striped shirt. He wasted no time, launching into a rather straightforward introduction to the Magi\u2014who they really were, who they have been made into by religious legend, what they symbolize, etc.<\/p>\n

When I say the service was upbeat, I am referring to the sermon, which was affirming and gentle, calculated to give not a moment\u2019s unease to anyone present. He contrasted the Magi, those seekers of truth, with Herod, \u201cwho is really not a good guy,\u201d and who was a suppressor of the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristianity under attack, Christ under attack, is nothing new,\u201d Chai said.<\/p>\n

He also contrasted the Magi with the local Jewish religious leaders in the time of Jesus. The Magi came from far, far away, guided by the \u201cheavenly GPS\u201d of the star of Bethlehem, he said, but the Jewish leaders, who should have known the signs at least as clearly as the Magi, couldn\u2019t be troubled to go even a few miles to behold the infant king.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Chai wondered if those present in church would likewise miss \u201call the wonder and awe\u201d of Christ\u2019s birth amid an orgy of shopping, parties and even church programs. A moment or too later, I forget how, Chai was suddenly, apparently, denouncing the notion of evolution, declaring that \u201cwe are not some mathematical aberrant here by mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a little while after that he warned that \u201csecularism is rolling across our country like a juggernaut.\u201d But the forces of secularism will not win, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can replace \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 with \u2018Happy Holidays,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201cbut they can\u2019t destroy the Gospel message.\u201d<\/p>\n

The oddest thing was that none of these statements was delivered in a way that was the least bit aggressive or even defensive. They were just thrown out with the same blandly optimistic air as everything else. And if those in attendance were inclined to feel a bit smug, knowing they were on the right side of history, among those wise enough to celebrate Christmas in the proper spirit, well, I believe that was the idea, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

I say above that the sermon lasted 26 minutes, but I may not have counted the two- or three-minute video that was shown after it\u2014of a flash mob singing Christmas carols in a shopping mall\u2014after which Chai made a few more remarks.<\/p>\n

I should mention that the church looks like it used to be some kind of mini-mall, with an exterior that is reminiscent of a Spanish hacienda. The sanctuary itself looks like the courtyard of a hacienda, a quite pleasant, if un-churchlike, setting.<\/p>\n

And despite all the references to the Bible and to Christ, the whole thing felt more like some kind of California pep talk than an actual church service. I am learning that just as there is a guy for every girl, and a girl for every guy, there is a Christian church for every kind of believer.<\/p>\n

Previously:<\/strong>\u00a0Chapter 1:<\/strong>\u00a0St. Patrick Co-Cathedral<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 2:<\/strong>\u00a0Mount Olive Lutheran Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 3:<\/strong>\u00a0Full Gospel Revival Tabernacle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 4:<\/strong>\u00a0First Church of Christ, Scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 5;<\/strong>\u00a0First Baptist Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 6<\/strong>: Billings Freedom Church.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 7<\/strong>: Faith Chapel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 8<\/strong>: Eagle Ministries Inc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter<\/strong> 9<\/strong>: First United Methodist Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 10<\/strong>: Pilgrim Congregational Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 11<\/strong>:\u00a0Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Meetinghouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 12<\/strong>: First Christian Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 13<\/strong>: Victorious Word Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 14<\/strong>: Oasis Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 15<\/strong>: Harvest Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chapter 16<\/strong>: Billings Association of Humanists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next week<\/strong>: Emmanuel Baptist Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word of Life Fellowship,\u00a01737 King Ave. W. Service: 10 a.m., Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014 Length of service: 1 hour, 8 minutes. Length of sermon: 26 minutes. I was a little nervous on my way to the Word of Life Fellowship. Having checked out the church\u2019s website, I had been struck by the dauntingly handsome staff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2349],"tags":[2923,2390,2924,2922],"class_list":["post-7777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-at-your-service","tag-alex-chai","tag-russell-fagg","tag-the-magi","tag-word-if-life-fellowship","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}