I know that we are supposed to have a religious encounter other than what we are accustomed to, and I was planning on attending two non-Christian places of worship. However, I did end up attending a Christian church, but I have to say it was an experience unlike any other I have ever had. You could say that I am Catholic, however, I haven’t attended a Catholic mass in over ten years. A few weeks back I visited a church by the name of Upper Room Christian Cathedral. Although the Upper Room Christian Cathedral is technically a non-denominational Christian church, in the words of the pastor of the church (Pastor J. L. Radford III) “the church has a sort of Pentecostal flavor.” 

The Upper Room Christian Cathedral is located in Manassas, Virginia. As I stated above, it is a non-denominational Christian church. The setting of the church is pretty informal; there were some people who were very dressed up in three-piece suits and such, and there were others in jeans and t-shirts. The church building itself is very small, about the size of a small one-story house (the church is currently collecting donations for a building fund for a new church building). The church also has very simple decorating with only a few floral bouquets. There is sort of a U shaped layout with a platform and alter in the center.

The church service was on a Sunday morning and started at 11:00 a.m. There was an hours worth of singing (that is standing up while singing, not sitting; I thought my feet were going to fall off). Being a predominantly African-American church, the music was very much R&B style Gospel. It was very uplifting, every one was very into the music; there was singing, clapping, and dancing. There was such positive energy in the air. After the singing, there was a prayer, followed by a sort of fellowship time to greet any newcomers. The people were so friendly, even the little kids would come up and introduce themselves to you and give you a hug; it was very touching. After the fellowship time was the sermon itself. The pastor’s sermon was very down to earth; he used words and analogies that you could really relate to. The topic of the sermon that day was “God always keeps his promises.” Following the sermon there was one last prayer before the conclusion of the service. In the prayer, the pastor asked for anyone who had not yet received Jesus Christ into his or her heart, but would like to, to come up to the front and do so.

After the service was over, I spoke with the pastor of the church. I told him that I very much enjoyed his sermon, especially the fact that I could really relate to what he had to say. He explained to me that he used to teach kindergarten full-time; he said to me “if you can learn to relate to kindergarteners you can learn to relate to just about anyone.” He told me that although he really enjoyed teaching kindergarten, he had a calling from God to preach.

Although this sort of worship style was completely different than what I am accustomed to, I loved it. I just loved how friendly the people were, how positive everyone was, just everything. I really enjoyed my experience.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the Upper Room Christian Cathedral, they have a Website (follow link above).

Return to top