My wife and I took advantage of a Sunday morning with no kids to venture out and visit a couple churches. Yes, I said a couple. We hit an early service then a later service elsewhere. It’s really hard to visit new places with young kids. You never know what you’ll run into.

We were going to visit an Episcopal church first then hit a Baptist service later, but the more I explained to my wife what liturgical worship was the less interested she was in going. So we opted to visit a Methodist church nearby instead. I would still like to worship with my Episcopal brethren soon, but I may have to catch a midweek service when I can while working. I have a fondness for the Book of Common Prayer after utilizing Celtic Daily Prayer of the Northumbria Community for almost two years now.

We arrived a few minutes too late for the early traditional service at the Methodist church so we joined their contemporary service on time. It was a small gathering, but everyone was very friendly. Most went above and beyond “hi, nice to have you” and took time to find out who we were and introduce us to others. (They left a care package on our front porch this evening, while we were out, also.) They were really warm and inclusive. The praise band was pretty good, but I’m just not much into singing praise songs on screen that I don’t know. I’m sort of old fashioned and enjoy hymns and four part harmony. Wierd, I know. The associate pastor gave the message. I wouldn’t say he preached as he didn’t expound on scripture or even have a point really. He kind of just told stories and talked about himself a lot. He seemed like he was in is early 20′s. A nice guy, just not much of a homelitician. Overall, the people were great. I find some common ground in the ministry model too. We’ll probably go back and visit the traditional service. I just think a lot of this seeker-sensitive stuff is style over substance, in my opinion.

It’s hard listening to other guy’s preach. I’ll be honest. I have high expectations because I want someone to make me think and engage me in the text. If nothing else, I just hope someone has a point and makes it clearly, even if I don’t agree with it. This may be a good time to explain why we’re looking for a church anyway. I don’t know. That’s the real answer. I really don’t know if I’ll continue preaching. If I can’t be honest, I’d rather not do it. I don’t want to be confrontational just to push people’s buttons, nor do I want confuse anyone with my present stage of questioning. For the time being I think it’s best that I settle some things for myself. I can definately say that I don’t feel that I need to pastor a church any longer, at least not in the traditional sense. I really would like to be part of a faith community that is willing to struggle with the tough stuff and nurture one another. If there’s something I can do to contribute without having to “run the show,” I’d gladly settle for an offstage role. I’ve got two young kids, and though I don’t have a “they need to be in church” mentality. I would like them to be part of a healthy faith community rather than dragging them around from church to church where I preach, and they become the focus of undue attention.

I had been to this Baptist church a couple times by myself, but I hadn’t been since the new pastor joined the staff recently. It’s an older downtown congregation with a unique mix of parishoners. I appreciate their focus on being incarnational. They also make an effort to incorporate the arts into their worship and ministry, which I think is great. I respect most that they aren’t “take it or leave it” Baptists. They are very inclusive and holistic. Their worship is fairly traditional but presented in a fresh way. The new pastor seems like a nice guy and did a really good job preaching. The pastor he followed was an incredible preacher, one of the best I’d ever heard. I think they found the best possible candidate to continue that legacy. My only criticism is that in all three of the times I’d been there, very few people ever spoke to me, besides the associate pastor. They all seem friendly enough I guess. One of the problems is that being a larger congregation, I don’t think many people really know who’s who. A lady behind us asked if we were new or not, because she’d been out a few Sundays and didn’t know us.

The pastor delivered a great sermon, but one of the things that really stayed with me, especially given our situation, was that he said you cannot both valuate worship and participate in worship at the same time (my paraphrase). He emphasized that rather than the church trying to have everything just right to attract visitors and rather than visitors trying to find everything they’re looking for in a new church, we all needed to focus on welcoming Christ into our worship and being incarnational ourselves. For that reason I’m trying not to be overtly criticial or play the “mystery church shopper.”

There are a few other churches I would like to visit before trying to make any decisions about a place of worship, but I enjoyed the experience over all and would go back to both churches again. If I could give one parting bit of advice to churches trying to attract new people, if you’re air-conditioning belt squeals, get it fixed! Not everybody can just tune it out.

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