The church I chose to attend was Centerpoint Church in Orem. Overall, the experience was positive. The situation generally felt unfamiliar, but not unsafe. I felt compelled to remain anonymous. I didn't want anyone to really notice me. It would've been hard to identify me as someone who didn't belong. I looked like I did. But I didn't really. I didn't know how things worked. I didn't know when we were supposed to stand or sit or the order of things. They try to make things friendly to visitors, which mitigated some of those effects, but some still remained. I still didn't really know what to expect.
Something I think I learned from this is that just because someone looks like they belong doesn't mean they feel that way. I have a roommate right now who is from Denmark. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and speaks English very well. However, she was originally raised in an entirely different culture with different values. Her family is all Danish. She gets along fine, but others in her situation may not have it as easy as she does. There could very feasibly be students in my school and classes who don't look like they belong and feel perfectly at home, and students who do look like they belong and feel entirely out of place. I can't assume, as a teacher, who does and who does not feel like they belong. I also ought to make my classroom someplace safe where people that may feel like outsiders elsewhere can come to feel like they belong.
Below are some songs that we sang at services:
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