Last Sunday: Finding a church, meeting a presidential candidate

I, I feel so alive/for the very first time/ I can’t deny you/ I feel so alive.-P.O.D.

I am creatively engaged, and overall I have felt a greater sense of urgency since I have been in D.C. Maybe it’s because I know that my time here is short. Perhaps, I should look at my whole life from that perspective; I would certainly get a lot more done! In Arizona I felt so chill, but out here I’m making every minute count. Last Sunday I had the opportunity to visit the set of This Week hosted by George Stephanopoulos. Little did I know that my friends and I would be in the studio with George Stephanopoulos and his guests Senator John McCain, and John Kerry via satellite. Khetiwe, Erica and I sat about fifteen feet from them listening to the director call the shots on the headset. Afterwards we met Senator John McCain and George Stephanopoulos. That morning before I left my apartment I read up on Stephanopoulos, and was surprised to see that he was a Rhodes Scholar and that he received his master’s degree in theology before going on to work for the Clinton Administration. I was also surprised to see that his daughter and I share the same name. Anyways, I kicked it with the girls for a while and then I shot back across town to go to church. National Community Church has 3 locations across the DC area and one is pretty close to where I live in Arlington at a theatre. NCC is known as the theatre church because they primarily meet in theatres. I was not sure where I wanted to attend church service at while I was down here. I thought at about attending a small black church somewhere or one of the black mega-churches that I know about through the TV like Bishop Harry Jackson’s church or Bishop Jamal Bryant’s church, but they are both in Maryland. Sidenote: I read a few article and listened to a interview on NPR on Harry Jackson and I was surprised to see how many people try to grill him on his biblical stance towards homosexuality. The man has his MBA from Harvard and his being questioned about his views on homosexuality as if he is a bigot. (forgive me for my rant, back to blogging) To tell you the truth, I've desired a real genuine place of worship, I’m not big on religion or structure or even crowds. So, I am glad I came to NCC. I was a little concerned about the diversity at the location I go to, but the people, the music and the Word have been great. Apparently, the location at Ebenezer’s Café on the Sabbath is more culturally diverse, but it a little farther away. What I really like is that the church is very much apart of the emerging church movement, so they are very media driven and artistic in everything they do. There are over 30 different small groups catering to different groups of people and different interest that meet every week and another 40 ministries for writers, bike riders, single moms, you name it. What I like is that it is spirit-filled like the church my home church in Glendale, but it is also is relevant and geared towards the younger generation like Young life. Today during an awesome sermon Pastor Mark played a clip of Tommy Boy to illustrate a point in his message entitled ‘The Fake Elephant.’ His style of ministry is very similar to the way I like to share the gospel. It’s filled with scripture, parables, quotes and elements of pop culture. They have a video and audio podcasts and a blog they maintain of the service on the website if you want to check it out. I was chatting with Christy, this pretty cool, artsy redhead, about our perspectives internships and then we discovered that we were both Jesus Freaks. Come to find out she had been attending NCC at the Ebenezer café spot on Saturday nights. So we went together this morning, we met another cool girl on the way inside and then we all went to Starbuck’s after. We were also accompanied by my new Nigerian friends, one is a media productions guy who has been teaching me some new stuff on my Mac. I gotta go do some home work, but I’ll holla.