The Windy City

Originally Posted March 23, 2008

Note for people with Secular worldviews: this blog does contain some religious elements. I am very pro-speech and all, but please don’t leave comments on how stupid or "delusional" you think these religious elements are. Thank you.



THE WINDY CITY

As you might have known I visited the Windy City over Spring Break. This blog will be about the people and places that I saw and visited.

CHICAGOLAND

This is the place I spent the most time at. It’s very modernist v. postmodernist if you ask me. Also, did I mention about 72% of this place has graduated from college? Even the homeless are "intellectual" which is pretty cool. Here’s some of the places I saw:

HALSTED

This place has about the 3rd largest gay community in the world, and the 2nd biggest Gay Pride Parade in America. It’s also pretty pluralist, and has a Night Club called Spin. I noticed one of the signs on this night club said they had a "What the F*** Wednesday."

THE ALLEY

Basically a huge alternative shop, in the back there’s an alley that’s called Hell. It basically has depictions of Hell and who the alternatives want to meet there. Pretty sad if you ask me.

Chicagoland also contains an alley where the homeless stay.

THE HIGH RISES

The High Rises has many rich people, some making $100,000 a year. They provide for their families just like normal people, they’re also called "Yuppies" by people on the streets which is actually a derogatory term.

THE NIGHT MINISTRY

The Night Ministry isn’t exactly what most Christians would think. It’s more a "humanitarian" organization that sells condoms to people so they can have sex. That’s nice and all, but there are better places people could focus their money on.

THE NURSERY

The Nursery takes care of the elders. I must ask the Christians reading this blog to pray for all of these places.

MAYWOOD

Maywood is an inner-city suburb of Chicago, I’m sure some of you have heard of it. There are tons of gangs and probably some drug dealers in that area. Most of this area is African-American, while they have a minority of other ethnicities. Can’t tell you much more about it.

BATAVIA

Batavia is about an hour away from Chicagoland, it’s called the "City of Energy" at least by the sign. Most of the churches are used for business, which makes me pretty mad, while another is used as some guy’s house. I think one of these was a kyropractor (probably didn’t spell that right). There is really only one active church, which is incredibly liberal.

ALBANY PARK

Albany Park is a popular stop for immigrants, which makes it incredibly diverse. It’s got Koreans, Mexicans, people from the Middle East, and other kinds of immigrants. Some of these can’t speak much English yet, even some of the shops are titled in different writing. I also saw a body shop there.

THE MAN WITH THE DEMON

We happened to meet up with a guy who we think is possibly a false prophet, i.e. demon possessed. The only time I saw him was when he was running around in a Marshall parking lot screaming his head off. He first came to C3 (the church we stayed at) in October, the people who run the church were getting a cold dark feeling so they didn’t let the man in. They also prayed that he wouldn’t be able to enter the church as long as he was possessed, which actually worked. He actually came back to the church, but he wasn’t let in. When we were dispatched to coffee shops for surveys, one of our teams actually ran into him and was talking to him, which wasn’t our team (I was in team 1).

I’ve heard from the guy who talked to him that he supposedly had a vision and was explaining parts of it. He would also prophesy from the prophetic books in the Hebrew Scriptures. I’ve also heard that he’ll look in more than one direction to "talk to someone," and he seems to be told what to say.

OTHER PEOPLE: I also ran into a post-modernist, a Wiccan, a Budhist, some Christians, and an atheist. The atheist didn’t really listen to me, which made me pretty mad. He also said that the disciples stole Jesus’ body, which no Biblical scholar actually accepts today, I think he was really just trying to shrug us off. Although, I have compassion for all of these, especially the atheist.

C3 MINISTRY TEAM:

I didn’t meet the complete team, but I did meet Tony, Steven, Rev. Jon R. Pennington and one of his kids, and a cool guy named Kevin, although all of these guys are pretty awesome.

That’s all I can think of for now, I’ll edit the blog if I think of anything else.