Chicago 2016 - Day Six

Sunday in America. Surely there is one thing you must do on a Sunday morning in America - watch some 'Christian' TV. It was fantastic. The first one I found had some bloke ranting about something which apparently was from the Bible. I couldn't work out what he was talking about so keep flicking through the channels to find something else. 

The next one looked really scratchy, and that made me wonder what was going on until the camera panned out and I saw the "Moving Ahead in '91" banner on the wall. Has nothing happened in the church since 1991? Is there nothing more up to date to show than this? Anyway, after listening to him shout at his congregation for a while it was time to move on. 

Finally I found him. The man with the impossible teeth. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joel Osteen!! (Insert sarcastic cheers here). It was almost impossible to turn away as I heard him speak about having a proper view of yourself. "No one can love you if you cannot love yourself" (Sucks to be depressed then) "Put on the breastplate of God's approval" (um, excuse me?) To be fair, there are worse things you can tell people than a positive self message, but you don't need to do that without Jesus. More about that below. 

I could look at those teeth and listen to this dribble for only so long, so the remote was pointed at the TV once again and then I struck gold; pure cheesy religious TV gold. "The Holy Spirit wants you to send $100 now. You may have never donated to this ministry before, but there's a reason you are watching today. Send $100 now, not to me but to the ministry." It was so good I wanted to stand and applaud. Instead, I changed the channel, found a gospel choir and just listened to them. They looked terribly bored, which was a bit out of place, but still sounded better than everything else I had seen. 

Tom arrived so we walked to the station, bought our tickets and jumped on a train. For three of us it was our first train experience in Chicago and a simple description of it is NOISY!! Not the people, just the train. 

Anyway, we got where we needed to be then walked to Covenant Presbyterian Church, the church Tom has been attending while in Chicago. (I would love to put a link here but can't see how to do that on the iPad. I encourage you to look it up online.) The sermon we heard today was interesting because there were some parallels with what I heard earlier from J.Osteen. The outstanding difference, and the thing that cheered my heart, is that the preacher at Covenant took the focus away from ourselves and put it on Jesus. 

What is my greatest hope? It is not anything in me except what Jesus has done. 

After church we journeyed back into the city and enjoyed lunch at Panera, which is so much more than a bakery. Great, great food and beautiful bread. Bronwyn also had a hot chocolate that is, well hard to describe. Another good place to know about in Chicago. 

We walked back to leave Tom at his rooms and then back to our own rooms for Bronwyn to pack her bag and wait for the bus to come and take her to the airport. She left in good time to get to the plane on time.

Today has been a good day. We now look forward to a sunny week in Chicago.