by the Book
Every Sunday, Kyle King wakes at nine or so in the morning when most of his K.K. Amini Scholarship Hall is still asleep. He showers and throws on some slacks and a polo, takes the first pick of the donuts down in the kitchen, knocks on a couple doors to see if anyone wants to come with, and heads to Christ Community Church for songs and a sermon.
On this particular Sunday, he and the rest of the congregation - a disproportionate amount of which is college students - start the service by standing and singing, reading the lyrics of the selected hymns from a large projection screen that hangs on the wall. A six-member band at the front plays along to the songs. Three women belt out the vocals and three men play guitar, bass and drums.
The son of a Baptist preacher in rural Ness City, King's been going to church on Sundays his entire life. The ritual is embedded into his weekly routine like school or anything else.
The pervasive feeling is one of jubilation. Yet the day's message is decidedly apocalyptic.
After a pre-sermon baptism during which a young boy is immersed in water – "Just because the water is lukewarm doesn't mean I want you to be that way as a Christian," the pastor says as he dunks the boy into the tub – the sermon begins.
Today's message, "Ready or not here He comes," is about the second coming of Christ and fabled Armageddon's first phase, which believers come to as The Rapture. It's the precursor to the end of the world, when God's people are supposedly swept up into heaven to be rescued from the impending reign of the Antichrist.
The pastor's sermon serves as a warning extolling Christianity's exclusive right to salvation.
"We can be sincerely wrong and sincerely headed in the wrong direction," the pastor says of society's emphasis on acceptance of all faiths.
But the sermon is also a declaration of hope, at least for Christians.
"Don't dread the coming of the Lord, look forward to it," he says. King sits silently and absorbs the uncompromising speech, and