Church Visit #7

I’m not sure I can really call this church visit number seven.  It may really be church visit number eight.  We visited this church last week, as well as yesterday.  I didn’t write about it because I honestly didn’t intend for this church to be one that we would consider as a possibility for where we would land.

I guess a good question would be “Why?”  Why wouldn’t I consider this church?  After all, I have a great friend who goes there.  I also have an old college friend that goes to church there.  Here’s why.

This church has had some struggles of late.  These issues won’t simply disappear overnight.

The church currently does not have a pastor.  Based on what I’ve seen in the past, I imagine they won’t have one for around a year.

Despite these two things, this church has zoomed to the top or our list.

The reason we decided to visit last week  was because my good friend is on staff there.  He was preaching the sermon, so I wanted to go support him.

A funny thing happened on the way home.

We all loved being there.  And we loved it again this Sunday.  There is definitely a sweet spirit in this church.

This doesn’t mean we are sold.  I have no idea if we will like other aspects of the church like Sunday school, Wednesday night services or anything else that goes on there.  However, I believe we are at a point of wanting to find out.

However, to quote Jan, it was the most enjoyable church service that we have been to in recent memory.

Let me describe our visit.

In many Southern Baptist churches, while waiting for the service to begin, an organist plays softly until the choir enters.  In this church some multi-instrumentalists took the organists place.

The choir entered.  Four singers stood in front of the choir, along with the worship pastor, to help lead the singing.

We sang a song and then had a greeting time.  My college friend’s husband walked from the opposite end of the auditorium to greet me.

We sang two or three more songs until the offering time.  While the offering was being taken up, the choir sang another song.

My friend then preached a message about the conquest of Jericho.  He even gave me a shout-out during one point that I had helped him with last week while we were on break (we work together and go on break together everyday).

We had a great time in church yesterday.

How was your church service yesterday?

Church Search: Next Phase

Today we are visiting one of the churches that we have already visited again.  It was Church #3 if  you want to go back and see what it was all about from the previous posts.  Let’s call it Church A and I will give a report on it next week.  We will visit Church B next week.  It was Church #4.

After next Sunday, we have a special church event to attend two Sundays from now.  The Sunday after that is Christmas.  Beginning January 1, we will have decided which of these two we want to focus on and attend that one for a few weeks.  We will also attend other services such as  evening services, Sunday school, fellowship groups and Wednesday night services.

As always, please continue to pray as we are looking at making decisions.