Slipperless in Seattle

Well, it’s a stupid title – but its true – I had my slippers all out ready to travel but then forget to pack them and I’m already missing them!

Now, this is going to be a combination of work and non-work info as I’m attending the Educause 2007 conference in Seattle from Wednesday through Friday (see how I’m learning the language?!) but have Sunday and Tuesday to myself while visiting Microsoft’s head quarters on Monday.

Okay then, since I last had enough sleep (seem to have missed a night somewhere), I’ve experienced several personal firsts.  First time in Seattle, first time trying out Vista – and it’s on a mac (which I haven’t tried for 10 years) – and today was my first try of an American super Church!

Well, I’ll begin with a little about my journey.  Having used my mac to watch 5 episodes of 24 while travelling, I had my first experience of Vista…  Put the DVD in and it moaned about codec drivers or something and just wouldn’t work – this is s fresh install of it.  So I turned to Mac OSX and well, it just played.  Wish I’d brought a mouse though as the Macs only have one mouse key on the keyboard.  The plane ride was okay but sitting for 9.5 hours in one place next to a lady who really wasn’t in the mind of the seat designer, isn’t my idea of relaxation.  The lady was very friendly and she told me about her trip to Scotland and how nice people were.  She feared that I would definitely find American people unfriendly in comparison with the Brits.  But the entertainment system was okay – watched 4 films – the latest Die Hard (well, what can I say – as expected), a forgettable film about somebody building an ark (okay, single acts of random kindness are good things), sunshine (rubbish – seriously, from a sci-fi fan, don’t bother), and Ocean’s 13 (felt like I’d seen it before).

So, way too much TV, way too little sleep and a breakfast that almost killed me – when did “egg and bacon” become a large slab of steak with several days efforts from a chicken piled on top of a huge mound of fried somethings?  And it costs so much less than in the UK.

Okay, after breakfast, I managed to drag my stuffed body to Mars Hill (www.marshillchurch.org).  I’d been thinking of where I should go on Sunday morning but the choice seemed endless.  A friend recommended Mars Hill, and I’d read about it because the Pastor (Mark Driscoll) has his fans and his fervent critics.  I was warned that I may not like the music   Well, here’s my experience of it…

The Church meets on several campuses that all take relays from the main one (the one I went to) and then have local elements.  There are 5 services per day that I was told all have the same sermon but a progressively livelier band!

The Ballard campus (main or “equipping”) venue is a little like a medium sized conference venue.  It has a main hall with seating for what I’d say is around 500 poss more – with lots of reception desks, ante-rooms, foyer facilities etc.  The main hall had a stage up front and two large projection screens either side and several large plasma displays all around the hall – each displaying the activity on the front stage.  The ceiling was black and the lights dimmed and rose according to what was happening.  The lights on the side walls also changed colours – blue, red etc to change the ambience occasionally. It was all controlled by a central mixing desk and people would occasionally pass with cameras – I presume in order to get different shots – as the sermons are systematically placed on the Internet.

Anyway, to the service itself…   It kind of just began – I say “kind of” because far from everybody was seated when the person at the front started speaking and saying why we all come together. In fact, people passed my seat throughout the service and returned with cups of drink from the excellently serviced drinks areas that I found afterwards!  There were two songs to begin with – all heavily accompanied by electric guitar and drums – but more on that later…

The preaching was good and lasted for about an hour all in all.  Pastor Driscoll appears to be doing a series on “The Rebel and …” which this week was looking at Philippians 4 v 12-17 and focused on our reactions to suffering, personal and in general.  It was the kind of thing that Wyn Hughes (my own Pastor at Heath www.heath-church.org) might have preached himself!  Very good and useful sermon.  I may have missed it – but it didn’t appear to distinguish between the sufferings that may come about as a result of being a Christian specifically (i.e. “take up thy cross and follow me”) as opposed to the more general category experienced by all.

Near the beginning, there was some video footage of this week’s news bulletins as the Pastor felt that many of us simply avoid the suffering that takes place in the world and wrap ourselves in our little cocoons of joy.  It also ended with a video (I presume made in-house) about Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871) who wrote “Just as I am” while suffering great pain and bed bound for many years.

We then went on to “sing” that great hymn to close.  I say “sing” but here’s where I get off the Mars Hill bus because I was so sincerely disappointed at this.  Some may find it odd that “I” say this – but I’ve nothing intrinsically against electric guitars and drums per-se.  However, my problem is that one could hardly hear one’s self sing let alone the other people in the hall.  The whole thing was dominated by very loud banging, crashing and twanging.  The musicians and the lead vocal guy were really talented but it was just so out of place in my opinion.  Don’t get me wrong – an organ can do just as much damage and often does (oops, did I really say that?!) – but this didn’t give the people a chance.  Again, it’s honestly not that I have anything against that type of music – it’s just that it was totally out of place.  This was a group of people gathered together for worship but the only thing that could be heard was the noise being made by the few people on the stage.  I just think that they are missing so much by doing it this way.  If it was quieter it might have been better – but I doubt you can do what that chap did with a drum kit in a quiet manner.

Communion was available during this singing and people were randomly wondering to the front to get their stuff and return to their seats to take it at their own pace (or so I found out afterwards). 

Frankly, it didn’t seem too friendly I’m afraid to say.  I would have loved to have gone to somebody’s house for lunch and to have experienced a bit of real America.  But, in spite of writing to the Church’s email address a couple of weeks before coming – and in spite of approaching 11 people to speak to them and say Hi myself, nobody returned my email and nobody engaged me in conversation or tried to find anything out about me beyond answering my questions regarding where to sit etc.  I sat by 3 young people who I was delighted to chat to for a few minutes after the service, but that was it.  I approached several others after the service but again, factual responses with no desire to find out anything about me or whether I was hungry!

(the sermon as preached in the evening is available to watch / download etchere: http://www.marshillchurch.org/sermonseries/philippians/week_03.aspx )

My afternoon was spent wondering around down town Seattle which was fun if a bit unusual for me on a Sunday!  I wanted to see if I could find my rendezvous for the bus that is taking me to tomorrow’s meeting at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters.  I spent a good while in the Seattle Public Library which is excellent – and I have a meeting there planned for Tuesday to find out about their use of RFID.  I took the liberty of updating my facebook status on their public PCs but was curious to note that while they are password protected, you could approach a desk and pick up a piece of paper with the day’s password on it! 

I was also  surprised to note that there were so many people using the PCs but when I asked two different members of staff about whether there was any analysis of the type of people that use the equipment, I drew a monosyllabic blank.

Maybe it’s me or maybe the lady on the plane was right.  Americans are normally completely besottingly friendly and polite when providing you with a service but not necessarily always so when not serving you – which is maybe the other way around to the UK!  Who knows?

In fact, I have had several good chats today with non service providers!  There were a couple of guys in the library that I asked why they used it.  They told me that they came with their laptops to rip music! Then there was the chap who complimented me on my The North Face fleece, saying that they are very popular in Seattle.

Everyone says that you have to go to the market by the bay.  I did have a wonder down there but it was pretty much like Cardiff market – which I suppose is fairly unusual for the US so fair enough.

This evening I met up with some really lovely UCISA colleagues.  Funny how facebook meant that certain people I had never really spoken to before were aware of my house move and and what the location of the new one looked like!

Speaking of which, its nearly midnight here so must be around 8am at home.  Think I’ll phone wifey and the kids to wish them a good day …